
LIBRARY or CONGRESS 






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Book 

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By MRS. A. G. KINTZEL 



Published by : : BROADWAY 
PUBLISHING : : COMPANY 
In New York at 835 Broadway 




library of CONGRESS 
Tw* Copies Received 


FEB 27 1904 

S. Copyrignt Entry 
^jir. "Ln CIO 
C^LASS ‘0^ XXc. No. 
^ 0 U" l> 

COPY a 


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Copyrighted, in 1904, 

BY 

MRS, A. G. KINTZEL. 


Kx Rights] \l^/erv'^d. 

c \ ^ it A ♦ ««« t 

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LEAVE ME MY HONOR. 


V 


1 . 

Leah Wentworth was called a beautiful 
woman. 

All men and some women realized that she 
was attractive to look upon. 

Her hair, black as night, shone with remark- 
able lustre ; in texture it was fine as silk and soft 
as satin, and her eyes were gray in the sunshine, 
blue in shadow — long eyes that brooded in re- 
pose and when animated proved searchlights of 
inquiry that challenged admiration with a daring 
unequaled. 

Her complexion, ivory and carnation, always 
fresh and clear, owed nothing to art, and her 
nose was perfect, but her mouth was a trifle too 
large for the rest of her features, and the teeth 
it contained, though white, were uneven — that is, 
the eye teeth were double, showing a short prong 
at the top, and the back teeth were much shorter 
than the front ones, which gave to her mouth when 
she laughed a babyish expression of innocence, 
inexpressibly charming. 

Her whole face, when Leah was quiet, ex- 
pressed rare intelligence. When she was aroused 


6 


Leave Me My Honor, 

any expression might be read there, from heav- 
enly kindliness to fiendish passion. 

Tall and slender, with grace in every motion — 
in truth a rare personality — and, withal, always 
daintily shod, bien coiffee, appetizing in all her 
appointments. 

She was married, when little more than a child 
to Ralph Wentworth, a rich broker, and had 
lived in luxurious ease, carelessly content, until, 
at the age of thirty-five, she fell in love with Dr. 
Robert Russell, aged twenty-four. 

He happened to be at that time in the hunting 
field at Radnor one day when she was thrown 
from her horse. In company with her almost 
distracted husband he had brought her home to 
Philadelphia, and had attended her for a 
wrenched ankle and a dislocated elbow — to the 
chagrin and annoyance of Dr. John Traynell, the 
family physician — who loved secretly the hand- 
some Mrs. Wentworth. 

Dr. Bob was a fresh, unspotted specimen of 
manhood for Leah to practice her arts upon, and 
when to all appearances the latter failed, she was 
compelled to acknowledge to herself, with deep 
humility and shame intolerable, that here was the 
one man, yet a mere boy, her co'-equal in intellect, 
pure in principle, who commanded her respect 
and filled her heart. 

He had inherited his practice from his father. 
Dr. Robert Russell, a noted surgeon, and though 
still so young, had won for himself renown in dif- 
ficult operations, but fevers were his specialty. 
To them he devoted all the time he could spare 
from his regular professional duties — visiting the 


7 


Leave Me My Honor, 

hospitals in search of hopeless cases, studying out 
a cure for them, and oftentimes successfully. So 
that when Leah, for mere wantonness, tried to 
keep him from his beloved work, it angered him, 
and he spoke some very plain home truths to her. 

It did not flatter his vanity at all when later 
she gave indication that he was more than a 
friend to her — he avoided her from that time. 

This added fuel to the fire of Leah’s passion, 
so intense had grown her penchant for the young 
doctor. She tried to conquer it, to hide it from 
herself, but she could not — nor from Dr. Tray- 
nell, who watched her with feline assiduity. 

He, Dr. Traynell, would let her have her little 
play with Dr. Bob, and if, as was more than 
likely with a woman of that caliber, she got her- 
self and the young man into serious trouble, why, 
he would pounce upon her and destroy her. 

Leah was conscious of his persistent espion- 
age, and one day when he had been called in by 
her husband for the heart ailment from which he 
suffered, she took occasion to waylay him in the 
hall and invite him into her sitting-room, where 
she could ask him a few questions. 

The doctor was delighted. He loved this 
woman with every fibre of his being. To be in 
her presence at any and all times made his pulse 
beat and his eyes glisten. 

'‘How is Mr. Wentworth to-day, doctor?” was 
the first question Leah asked, after pointing him 
to a seat on the opposite side of a small table at 
which she had placed herself. 

“About as usual,” the doctor replied, “a little 
palpitation consequent upon the rise of certain 


8 Leave Me My Honor. 

securities in the stock market — nothing to worry 
about. You, I see, are as well as ever. Dr. Bob 
has done his work thoroughly,” he added, with a 
malicious side glance that annoyed her exceed- 
ingly and made the ivory forehead turn for a mo- 
ment to flesh tint. 

^^Dr. Traynell,” said Leah, her voice trembling 
with anger, “why do you feel called upon to 
watch my every action since my fall in the hunt- 
ing field?” 

“Do you really want an answer to that ques- 
tion? Had we not better waive the subject?” 

“What do you mean, sir?” 

“Exactly what I say, my dear Mrs. Went- 
worth.” 

“But I do not understand you.” 

“That is your fault, not mine.” 

“Speak clearly, man !” 

“Really? Do you insist upon it? You will not 
like what I am going to say.” 

“Speak!” 

“\Vell — er, the reason of my careful observa- 
tion of all y6ur lovely doings is — excuse my plain 
speaking — is because you need watching by an 
old friend of the family such as I am, don’t you 
know. I was Ralph Wentworth’s friend before 
he married you, and would hate to see him made 
a fool of for — well, for Dr. Russell, we’ll say. 
Not that he has the slightest notion at present — 
at present, I say — of harming or caring for any- 
thing that may belong to Ralph Wentworth. He 
thinks more of the most virulent case of typhus 
than he does of — we’ll say you, Mrs. Wentworth, 
but you, my dear lady, you are leaving no stone 


Leave Me My Honor, 9 

unturned to win his regard, to lure him from his 
fevers. Have I said enough 

‘^Say on.” 

“Well— er, the game, as it stands, is lopsided, 
but you, you, Mrs. Wentworth, will never rest 
until it is more evenly balanced, and then — then 
there’ll be fire, and we’ll have to look out for the 
sparks. If you could be satisfied, now, to let 
that young man alone he would devote his life to 
fevers and lose it in the cause of humanity; but 
you will not. You will throw out your bait and 
angle with patience until you hook your fish. It 
will be very interesting to the onlooker — I shall 
quite enjoy it — but when it comes to the finish 
Ralph must take a hand in the game. How will 
you like that ?” 

“You have given me a glimpse of the cards in 
your hand. Dr. Traynell,” she retorted, smiling. 
“You think the game is euchre, in which the 
knave is high when hearts are trumps ; it is Old 
Sledge, however, that I am playing, and in that 
game, you know, the queen beats the knave.” 

“Yes,” said the doctor, “and the king beats the 
queen. Ralph is the king in your game, but who 
is the ace? Ace is high, and sweeps all before 
it. Is Dr. Bob the ace? Do you hold him?” 

“We’ll see. Dr. Traynell. In the meantime, 
watch me with all your might, and when you 
have anything to report, take it to my husband. 
He will reward you appropriately. Good-morn- 
ing, and don’t forget that in Old Sledge you draw 
cards from the deck.” 

The doctor left the house with a puzzled frown. 

Leah went to her husband in his room. 


lo Leave Me My Honor. 

He was sitting up in bed, holding in his hand 
a tablet on which he was figuring, but which he 
laid aside as soon as he saw her. 

"‘Fm so glad youVe come, Leah,’’ he said. “I 
want to tell you of the immense sums of money 
I have cleared in the last few days. You shall 
have all the gew-gaws you may want, my pet, for 
whom have I but you to spend it upon ? How im- 
perially beautiful you are to-day, my love! 
‘Wentworth’s Empress,’ the fellows at the Bourse 
call you; and no wonder! You are supremely 
lovely now — handsomer, in fact, than on the day 
I married you eighteen years ago. That’s right ! 
Make yourself comfortable in the rocker, but 
move it close to the bed, so that I can kiss you 
when I want to. What brought you to me this 
morning?” 

“Dr. Traynell.'’ 

“Dr. Traynell? What? Did he have the har- 
dihood to alarm you about my condition? I am 
not seriously ill, Leah, but my heart does jump so 
When I hear either good news or bad. Fll not 
have him worry you ; time enough when I am at 
the last gasp. Your life shall be nothing but 
sunshine — as it has been all along for eighteen 
years. Has it not, Leah?” 

“It has, Ralph. You have made it very bright 
for me.” 

“That was my aim from the beginning. From 
the day, Leah, when you stood beside me in 
bridal array and promised to love, honor and 
obey me, I have made it my business to keep 


II 


Leave Me My Honor, 

home, and then we’ll go to New York, to Wash- 
ington, perhaps, at Christmas, and to Europe 
again in the Spring. That will suit you, I sup- 
pose ?” 

'‘Yes, that will suit me. I shall enjoy going 
with you to all those places ; but if, instead of go- 
ing to New York and Washington, you prefer to 
rest here, I shall be perfectly satisfied.” 

“That fellow has been filling your head with 
nonsense about the state of my health. I know it 
from your answer, and I shall sit on him prop- 
erly if he does it again. By the way, how is Dr. 
Russell ? I like that young fellow amazingly, and 
if Dr. Traynell can’t obey orders, I’ll give him a 
trial to see if he can.” 

“But Dr. Traynell is your old-time friend.” 

“Isn’t he yours, too?” 

“Ye-es.” 

“How you say that! As if you wanted me to 
think that the doctor is not your friend; that he 
does not like you. He does like you.” 

“I know it.” 

“Now, there you go again with your straight- 
forward but enigmatical answer. Does he like 
you too well ? Is that what your tone implies ?” 

No answer. 

“Has he dared, the old fool, to raise his eyes to 
you ? Answer.” 

“Watch him the next time you see him in my 
company.” 

“I will. There goes the bell, and I suppose you 
must go down ; but come to me to-night — yes ?” 

Leah promised, and when she was outside the 


12 


Leave Ale Aly Honor. 

room rubbed one hand within the other in a 
pleased way as she said to herself: “I have 
drawn a card from the deck — a good trump card 
— but I don’t like cards, and I won’t think of 
them again.” 


13 


Leave Me My Honor. 

t 


11 . 

The visitor proved to be Mrs. Stanhope, Leah’s 
dearest friend and gossip. She had just come 
up from Atlantic City, where she had been on 
some business for her husband, a politician. 

"T had to come and see you the moment I re- 
turned,’’ she said with a loving kiss, settling her- 
self in an easy chair near Leah. ‘T ran into Dr. 
Russell just as I was leaving the house, and he 
assured me that you had fully recovered the use 
of your ankle and arm ; that your health was per- 
fect, but I wanted to see for myself. And so you 
are well and hearty, the same old beautiful Leah. 
Positively, I believe that you are handsomer than 
when I last saw you. There’s a new light in 
your eyes. What put it there, dear? Surely, not 
br. Bob Russell? You hang your head! Is it 
possible that you feel love’s pangs and pleasures, 
and all in vain? My dear, my dear! br. Bob is 
wedded to fevers, and neither you nor any other 
woman will divorce him from his crazy love. 
Numbers have tried and failed. None as beauti- 
ful and experienced as you are, it is true ; but you 
will go down with the rest. I feel sure of it ! He 
will be at my conversazione to-morrow ; you and 
Ralph are coming, and I will make an oppor- 
tunity for you to have a chat alone with him if 


14 Leave Me My Honor, 

you like. I always help along a flirtation, you 
know. But here I don’t think it will come to 
anything.” 

^‘Is Dr. Traynell going to your conversazione?” 

'‘Dr. Traynell? Yes; but what of him?” 

“Arrange it so that he will be penned in a cor* 
ner with Ralph and me for about a quarter of an 
hour. I want my husband to see how much the 
doctor admires me.” 

“My dear Leah, is it safe to do anything rash ?” 

“I think it is in this case. The doctor and I 
are playing a game of Old Sledge. Hearts are 
trumps; we have both played and captured a 
trick, and each has drawn a card from the deck. 
The king of hearts came to me. The doctor drew 
an ace, but not the ace of hearts.” 

“Well, if you hold the deuce of hearts in your 
hand, vou c^n trump his ace with it and keep 
your king. Do you hold it?” 

“Do I hold you?” 

“To the finish. It is high, low, jack and ti e 
game, isn’t it?” 

“Yes; but, oh, why do I revert to the cards? 
I hate them! Give me half an hour alone with 
Dr. Bob to-morrow night. It will be difficult. 
He avoids me.” 

"Ah, is it so? Then you have not been wise, 
Leah. With all your experience of men’s hearts 
and manners, you have been as egregiously fool- 
ish as any untried young maiden. You have let 
him see into your mind, my friend, and thus 
blasted all your hopes.” 

“Not quite so bad as that, Mabel. I gave him 
a look ; no other sign.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 15 

'‘But that look did it ; it angered him ; he avoids 
you.” 

“That look may have done it, as you so ele- 
gantly express it, in another way. It may have 
shown him his own heart — it may haunt him — 
he may be afraid to meet me.” 

“Well, flatter yourself that way if you like. 
I’ll give you the half hour. Good-bye, dear. Give 
my kindest regards to your husband. Mine, by 
the way, is in high feather. I have brought him 
back important news.” 

At the conversazione things were so arranged, 
early in the evening, that Mr. and Mrs. Went- 
worth sat together in a cozy corner facing Dr. 
Traynell, who was resting on a pile of cushions. 

Never for a moment did his eyes wander from 
Leah — not even when Ralph addressed him point- 
edly — and he plainly showed his admiration for 
the beautiful woman before him. Ralph felt as 
though he would like to throttle his old friend; 
then his better judgment prevailed; but he at 
once came to the conclusion that he would no 
longer require Dr. Traynell’s professional serv- 
ices ; that he could no longer trust him. 

Presently the doctor’s gaze grew so intensely, 
cruelly watchful that it made Ralph feel sick. 
“Let us get out of this hot corner,” he said to 
Leah. “I see Dr. Russell standing in the door of 
the conservatory, and wish to ask him for some- 
thing to quiet the loud thumping of my heart. 
He may have some sedative with him. It has 
excited me above everything to see that fellow 
watching you. He can’t help admiring you, I 


i6 Leave Me My Honor, 

suppose; but he must stop watching you or I’ll 
know the reason why !” 

Dr. Bob had a soothing powder which he gave 
to Mr. Wentworth, and made him lie down on a 
couch in the host’s morning-room. “In half art 
hour you will be better,” he said to him, “if you’ll 
stay here and keep quiet.” 

“Well, look after my wife in the meantime. I 
don’t want to spoil her pleasure by making her 
stay here with me. Don’t think I could rest with 
that on my conscience.” 

“You must have rest and quiet now, Mr. 
Wentworth,” the doctor urged. “I will take 
charge of your wife.” 

So fate decreed that these two should be to- 
gether for thirty minutes, and, thanks to Mrs. 
Stanhope’s strategical handling of her other 
guests, they were alone in the conservatory. 

The doctor led Leah to a seat near the palms, 
and stood before her waiting for her to speak; 
but she spoke not, only looked at him until his 
discomfort grew so great, his anger so hot, that 
he smothered a curse in his throat. 

Soon Leah’s eyes overflowed ; big drops rolled 
down her cheeks. 

“Stop that !” he said, roughly. “I know why 
you weep,” and, stepping behind a palm so that 
she could no longer see him, he stayed there until 
the half-hour was up. Then he offered her his 
arm and led her back to her husband, but not be- 
fore he had pulled out a handkerchief from his 
pocket and dabbed the tears from her cheeks 
with it with a matter-of-fact thoroughness bor- 
dering on roughness. 


17 


Leave Me My Honor, 

What could Leah do but smile when she saw 
him stuff the wet handkerchief into his breast 
instead of returning it to the hip pocket whence 
it had come. 

Dr. Traynell saw the smile and saw the 
younger physician bend over Ralph Wentworth 
with a medicine vial in his hand. 

He did not dream that his eyes had betrayed 
his heart nor could he guess through what agency 
Ralph Wentworth had become suddenly sharp- 
sighted. He approached Mrs. Stanhope. “Do 
you know why Ralph Wentworth takes Dr. Rus- 
sell’s medicine to-night instead of mine?” he 
asked, when she was for a moment alone. 

“Yes, I do,” she answered. “He would have 
been foolish to have taken your medicine to- 
night.” 

“Why?” 

“Oh, take another card from the pack,” she 
smiled, as she sailed away on the arm of a literary 
lion. 

“That woman has been taken into Leah’s con- 
fidence. She knows what I said to her yester- 
day,” the doctor said to himself. “She is Leah’s 
friend. Well, Wentworth is my friend, even if 
he did take Dr. Bob’s medicine. But what made 
him do that? I will call there to-morrow and 
find out.” 

Which he did. 

. • ^ ^ . 

A very cool “Good-morning!” answered his 
own pleasant greeting as he stood before the man 
he claimed as a friend. 

He sat down and put the tips of his fingers to- 


1 8 Leave Me My Honor. 

gether as he looked the question he feared to ask. 

Ralph Wentworth answered the look by asking 
at once : 

“What did you mean, sir, by eyeing my wife 
as you did last night? Admiration was in your 
gaze at first. I forgive you that — but when you 
began to watch her, man, you turned me sick, ab- 
solutely sick with apnrehension.” 

“Don’t get excited, Ralph,” the doctor said 
calmly, though his breath came and went quickly 
and his eyes glittered ominously. “It is not good 
for you.” 

“Damn the good ! Why did you watch her ?” 

“Because she needed watching, Ralph.” 

“Needed watching? My Leah? Ha! ha! 
Was not I there to watch her?” 

“You were j but you are blind as a bat where 
she is concerned.” 

“Gad, man, you don’t like her, after all ! She 
gave me that impression once yesterday, and then 
again, she almost told me that you liked her too 
well.” 

“She did? Then that accounts for your cool 
treatment of me to-day and for Dr. Russell’s serv- 
ices to you last night. Your wife, Ralph, is 
fathoms deep in love with your new physician; 
watch her eyes as you did mine last night, and 
they will prove my words true if they rest on 
him. I admire your wife — always did, and — I 
can’t help it, Ralph. But I love her, and, were 
she similarly inclined toward me, would rob you 
of her. This is very plain speaking, but you will 
have it so. I love her so well I would put you 
out of the road in a jiffy if I had the ghost of a 


19 


Leave Me My Honor. 

show with herl But I haven’t, and you are safe 
from me. Russell, however, is also a doctor, and 
Leah loves him.’^ 

“Does he love Leah?” Ralph Wentworth broke 
in. 

“He does not at present, but he will if you do 
not take her out of his path. Your wife is a 
woman of rare intellect with which to charm any 
man — a consummate actress, to deceive him ; 
dominated by passion inordinate, calculated to 
win response. She will hold his heart in the end, 
and, if she does, how will it be with you, my 
friend? You cannot call for Dr. Russell’s pro- 
fessional services now that I have opened your 
eyes. Mine, I know, will no longer be in de- 
mand here.'^ 

“You are right, John Traynell. I am done with 
you forever. You must never again enter my 
house — you — you scoundrel ! fiend ! whom I called 
friend. You would not only rob me of my wife if 
you could, but would make her life a misery to her. 
She shall not be miserable, I tell you ! Keep your 
eyes from her, you tiger! — that would seize my 
Leah, my little lamb, with your cruel paws, and 
crunch her bones with your teeth! You shall 
trouble her no more. Let her complain to me but 
once that you are watching her, and I throw 
broadcast the words you Uttered to me in this 
room. Don’t come near me. There are two de- 
tectives behind you who have heard our conver- 
sation. They heard you say in cold blood that 
you would not let my life stand in your way if you 
had any chance with my wife. That would be an 


20 


Leave Me My Honor. 

ugly report to spread about Dr. Traynell, don’t 
you think?” 

Traynell cast a look behind him and then mut- 
tered: will never trouble you or her again, 

Ralph.” 

‘'See that you keep your word. Her life shall 
be bright. I have said it. She shall have sun- 
shine, even from my grave.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 


21 


III. 

He rested a while after the doctor and the de- 
tectives were gone. Then he sought Leah in her 
boudoir — a charming room, all rose and silver, in 
which he had spent many happy hours with her. 

She was not there when he entered but came 
at his summons. 

He drew her on his knee and pressed her to 
him, and his eyes moistened as he looked at her 
face and saw a new expression there. It bespoke 
nothing for him. He could not conjure up the 
brooding passion which it told of. He had not 
the power — but neither had she, according to Dr. 
Traynell. Not yet did Dr. Russell love her, but 
he was young — much younger than Leah, though 
wisdom made him older — and youth was impres- 
sionable. He would learn to love her, and it 
would be a pure love, in spite of the fact that she 
was married, for he read Dr. Bob aright. He 
knew sinful passion would be torn from his heart 
by the roots. He would see them together. He, 
the dying man, who owned Leah and loved her, 
and who must make her happy even from the 
grave. 

Leah’s eyes were closed as she rested in her 
husband’s arms, and she did not see his look, but 
she felt the tenderness of the kiss he pressed upon 


22 


Leave Me My Honor. 

her lips ; and, returning it, she nestled closer and 
threw her arms about his neck. She was accus- 
tomed to having him act the lover in this boudoir, 
and his affectionate ways pleased her. 

“I dismissed Dr. Traynell this morning,'^ Ralph 
said in a little while. 

Leah sat up. “Dismissed him she said. “For 
looking love at me last night? Why, Ralph, 
many men have looked love at me, often to your 
amusement.’^ 

“I know that, love. We have often laughed 
together at the moths that would flutter to the 
candle and get their wings singed. It was cruel 
sport, I will acknowledge, but such things must 
be ; and the fellow who looks love or acts love to 
another man’s wife deserves to get burned. It 
does him good in the end; it teaches him that a 
woman may be virtuous though she be a married 
flirt. Married flirts have their uses, but, Leah, 
Dr. Traynell not only showed in his eyes the 
love he bears you ; he watched you as no man 
must watch my wife. I told him so, and dis- 
missed him ; and in the future I would like you to 
avoid him, yet not so markedly as to provoke 
comment. Leah, Leah, if you should get into 
that man’s power! If he knew what we must not 
even whisper to ourselves 1 Oh, Leah, be careful. 
Let him never get a hold on you.” 

Leah grew restless, and got up and walked 
about the room. 

“Ralph,” she said, returning to his knee, “there 
is trouble coming to us. Twice yesterday I spoke 
of cards — think of it, Ralph — cards I” 

“S-h-h-h, my dear, not so loud — the walls may 


23 


Leo.ve Me My Honor, 

have ears,” Ralph said in a voice not much above 
a whisper. “We have kept it hidden — that past 
life — none know of it except the Stanhopes. They 
are true as steel ; but if ever a hint gets to Dr. 
Traynell, it will be bad for you, Leah.” 

“And not for you ?” 

“Oh, yes, for me, too; but I Have you 

any more of the powders Dr. Bob left for me?” 

“No, Ralph, you took them all. You take a great 
deal of medicine lately. Is your heart getting 
worse ? You are surely not going to die and leave 
me, Ralph? I couldn’t do without you, you 
know, after having had you for eighteen years! 
Have I been a good wife to you, Ralph, in all 
that time ?” 

“You have been good and true, Leah, since the 
day three men offered you their hearts and for- 
tunes and you chose me. The other two were 
handsomer, younger, richer, better ” 

“No, Ralph ; not better.” 

“That’s what you said then : T will take Ralph 
Wentworth for my husband, because he is the 
best of the lot. He will make my life bright and 
happy.’ Have I succeeded in doing that, Leah ?” 

“Yes, oh, yes, Ralph, you have.” 

“And in all that long time, my wife, you have 
not learned to love me.” Very sadly Ralph Went- 
worth spoke these words, and Leah hung her 
head. 

“I do not mean to reproach you,” he went on, 
“but I do think it is wonderful that in eighteen 
years no man — neither I nor any other — has 
touched your heart. How I wish I had one of 
those powders ! But the doctor is coming to-day. 


24 Leave Me My Honor, 

He said he would. That must be his ring now. 
Come down with me, Leah, to see him. I like 
him so much. He is a fine fellow — a true type of 
noble manhood.” 

‘T will join you presently, Ralph,” said Leah, 
‘"when I am a little more presentable, for,” she 
added with a smile, ‘'my boudoir gallant manages 
to rumple me up considerably when he calls on 
me.” 

Ralph went to the drawing-room, where Dr. 
Russell was awaiting him. 

‘T was greatly surprised last night,” said the 
doctor, “when you requested my services. Dr. 
Traynell is considered high in the profession in 
all diseases of the heart, while I am but a raw re- 
cruit in the handling of that organ. Fevers are 
my specialty, you know.” 

“Yes, I know; but for personal reasons I have 
lost faith in Dr. Traynell, and you will study my 
case, I am sure, and do what you can for me. I 
have faith in you. Dr. Russell.” 

Leah, much to the surprise of Dr. Bob, walked 
in at this point. 

He greeted her politely and went on with the 
examination of her husband’s pulse, and then to 
prescribe for him. 

Leah glanced wistfully at him. He raised his 
eyes suddenly and caught her look. None of this 
was lost on Ralph ; neither was the impatient 
frown that darkened the doctor’s forehead imme- 
diately after nor the pensive droop of Leah’s lips 
and the quivering breath that hid a sigh. 

“I can see that she loves him,” he thought, “and 
that he knows it. The knowledge frets a‘\d 


25 


Leave Me My Honor, 

angers him. He does not hate her, that is evi- 
dent; but if she ever does win his love he will 
cut his heart out rather than let her know it. He 
is a man. She would be safe with him. He 
would give her sunshine — and, ah! the beams 
would be glorified.” 

“You will not want me any longer, will you, 
Ralph?” Leah said when the doctor was gone. 
“I am going to call on Mabel — or would you like 
me to drive with you?” 

“If you would be so kind, love. Somehow, I 
feel inclined to oe selfish to-day. I can’t bear to 
have you out of my sight for a minute.” 

She left him, and Ralph went to the library and 
took up a book, but he could not concentrate his 
mind on what he was reading. He discarded the 
book and tried a paper, with no better result ; not 
even the stock page could hold his attention. So 
the paper went the way of the book, and Ralph 
leaned back in his chair and gave himself up to 
thought until he heard the bell, and Mabel Stan- 
hope made her appearance. 

“Do not disturb yourself,” she said. “I came 
in directly the servant told me you were here 
alone. Mason Worrell lies dying at the Conti- 
nental, and he wants to see Leah. Leah, of all 
others. Oh, Ralph, after all these years! He 
sent for my husband and told him to bring her to 
him, as he could not die without seeing her once 
more. What is to be done, Ralph? She was to 
come to me to-day, but I wanted to see you first.” 

“Mason Worrell — the man who shot 

^‘Yes; and why he wants to see her I cannot 
imagine. Will you allow her to go to him, or 


26 


Leave Me My Honor, 

shall we say nothing to her about it, and let him 
die as best he may?” 

‘'She shall go to this man if she so elects when 
she hears his request. Luncheon will be on im- 
mediately. You must stay and take it with us, 
and afterward accompany us, perhaps, to Wor- 
rell’s bedside. Leah said there would be trouble 
coming. She mentioned cards twice lately.” 

“So she did — in connection with Dr. Tray- 
nell.” 

“I have discharged him, Mabel, in favor of 
Dr. Russell.” 

Mabel looked at him but said nothing. The 
luncheon bell was ringing. She hastily removed 
her wraps, and surprised Leah with a kiss as she 
came in for her husband. 

“I’m glad you came, dear,” said Leah. “Ralph 
and I are going for a drive, and I could not have 
called on you. But what brought you here?” 

“I will tell you after luncheon,” said Mabel. 
“I want to do it full justice first.” 

“I’m hungry, too,” Ralph put in, “and, seeing 
us two ravenous, ought to make you feel the same 
way.” 

“Oh, my appetite is always good,” she an- 
swered. 

After luncheon Mabel followed Leah to her 
room, and there told her her errand. 

“Mason Worrell dying!” gasped Leah. “And 
wishing to see me I What does he want of me — 
of me, after all these years ? Does Ralph know ?” 

“Yes, I told him before you came down.” 

“What does he say ? Does he want me to go ?” 

“He leaves it entirely to you.” 


27 


Leave Me My Honor, 

*^Then I will go. Once more I will look on the 
man who — who — oh, God ! will I ever forget that 
night ?” 

“Do not think of it, Leah, but get ready, and I 
will accompany you. He desired Max to bring 
you, but Ralph says he is going with us.” 

“I knew — I knew there would be trouble when 
cards came into my mind.” 

“Nonsense, Leah! You are childishly super- 
stitious on that point. There will be no trouble. 
The man is dying full of remorse — that is all — 
and he wishes to ask your forgiveness. I would 
snap my fingers at the whole affair if he had any 
other physician than Dr. Traynell. ‘Do you know 
why Mr. Wentworth takes Dr. Russell’s medicine 
instead of mine to-night?’ Traynell asked me last 
night.” 

“And you answered ?” 

“I answered, ‘Yes, I know.’ ‘Why?’ he re- 
peated, and I said, ‘Oh, draw another card from 
the deck !’” 

“Cards again!” sighed Leah, as she took up 
her gloves. 


28 


Leave Me My Honor, 


IV. 

Arrived at the hotel, they were told the sick 
man insisted on seeing Mrs. Wentworth alone. 

Leah followed the servant to the room, and 
found Dr. Traynell bending above the man she 
recognized at a glance as Mason Worrell. That 
was his head, heavy and broad; the features, 
strong, large, irregular; the eyes, gray-blue, 
shrewd, wondrously intelligent ; the brow, strong, 
showing eloquence; the mouth, full and sensual 
and cruel. 

“Is that man,^’ nodding toward the doctor, “to 
be a witness to any conversation that may take 
place between us?’' she asked, the storm within 
her heart reflecting itself on her countenance. 

“No, Leah,” the man gently replied. 

“Withdraw, sir,” she commanded. 

Dr. Traynell showed his teeth and withdrew 
out of sight, but not entirely out of hearing. He 
took care to leave the door by which he made his 
exit unlatched. 

Leah drew the heavy curtains across it without 
noticing that it was not closed, and so the doctor 
could hear her words when excitement caused her 
to raise her voice, but not the low tones of the in- 
valid. Once only the dying man spoke aloud, and 
then the listener heard what he said. 


29 


Leave Me My Honor, 

“My husband is in the house,” Leah said, as she 
took a seat by the bedside. “Ralph Wentworth, 
you know. He was there at that time.” 

“He was one of the three ” 

“Yes; may he come in?” 

“No; my words are for your ear alone. You 
are still beautiful, Leah, beautiful — beautiful as 

you were at that time, when ” 

“When you shot down my father in cold blood 
before me, because, as you claimed, he cheated at 
cards. Leave my beauty out of the question. Ma- 
son Worrell, and say what you have to say briefly. 
I have not much time to spare you. You accused 
my white-haired old father of cheating you — you, 
to whom he lost all his money and would have 
lost his daughter, too, had not three brave men 
decided otherwise. Oh, it all comes before me 
again when I see you lying there — the room in 
that lawless place, the rude curtains drawn across 
the windows, the flickering lamp on the table, 
around which you and my father and three others 
sat, while I leaned over his shoulder. You fleeced 
him, and when he could no longer play, because he 
had nothing more to stake, you said: ‘Stake 
Leah!’ But the others objected to the human 
stake, and then you said : ‘Stake the ring on her 
finger.’ I pulled it ofif. The play went on, and 
when luck for once came my father’s way, you 
said he cheated, and pulled out a revolver and 
shot him — shot him down ! and he fell at my feet. 
‘I did not cheat,’ he said as he fell. But the cards 
still in his hand proved otherwise — so said you 
and the others. Oh, Mason Worrell, as I see you 
lying before me, I feel such rage rising within 


30 Leave Me My Honor. 

me that I could kill you — kill you ! — fiend incar- 
nate ! — as you killed my poor old father !” 

And, so "saying, she struck him in the face with 
her clenched first. 

The dying man raised himself by great effort. 
“Leah ! Leah he said, “I am dying.” 

“I see that, and I regret striking you. But why 
did you say that old man cheated? He did not 
cheat, Mason Worrell ! I would take his dying 
word against the world. Why did you prove him 
a cheat?” 

“Because I loved you, Leah. I thought you 
would come to me when you found yourself all 
alone in the world, with that stain on your fa- 
ther’s name — glad to hide your shame with me 
when you were helpless.” 

“You did not think of the others, it seems. 
They loved me, too. Mason Worrell. Each one 
of those three brave, true men laid his heart and 
his fortune at my feet over my dead father’s 
body, as you know, and I took Ralph Wentworth. 
And you. Mason Worrell, were powerless. They 
told you — those three did — that if you ever 
breathed anywhere that my father cheated at 
cards they would take the law into their hands 
as you did — as you did, inhuman wretch — as you 
did! You shot him down before me; and now, 
what do you want with me, after eighteen years ? 
Why did you send for me?” 

“Because I wanted to tell you my story and to 
beg your forgiveness.” 

“My forgiveness? I forgive you for killing my 
father? Never! But your story may be interest- 
ing.” 


31 


Leave Me My Honor. 

With dilated nostrils and glaring eyes she 
leaned forward, anxiety, fear, suspense, uncer- 
tainty in every feature. 

“My story starts from the time I met you, 
Leah,” Worrell began. “I loved you from the 
first moment. It was in that far Western town 
where your father lost his little all to me. He 
had the gambling fever. Even you he would have 
gambled away had it not been for the others, you 
must acknowledge. How we came to your hum- 
ble lodgings night after night — I and the others — 
to play with your father, ostensibly — to see you, 
in reality — you know; but you do not know of 
the many schemes I laid to get you into my power. 
I did not succeed. Not even at the last, when I 
made it appear that the Colonel cheated ” 

“Made it appear — made it appear that he cheat- 
ed ! Oh, God, I thank thee ! He did not cheat ! 
My father did not cheat at cards ! And you — you 
killed him! He did not cheat! Let me call 
Ralph! He must know that my father was an 
honest man to the end.” 

“Stay! If you call him in I will say no more. 
It will be your word against mine, as it has been 
all along.” 

“Say it again, Mason Worrell — say that you 
made it appear — say that he did not cheat. Say it 
out loud ! It is music to my ears !” 

“Your father did not cheat at cards, Leah. I 
made it appear so to the others by sleight-of- 
hand,” Worrell repeated, loud enough for Dr. 
Traynell's ear, and then he sank back on his pil- 
lows and continued: “I sent for you to tell you 
this. I knew how your proud spirit suffered. I 


32 Leave Me My Honor, 

suffered, too, Leah; beautiful Leah, I suffered, 
too. And now I want your forgiveness. I long 
to have you clasp my hand just once, Leah, and 
say: 'Mason Worrell, I forgive you, as I hope 
to be forgiven.’ ” 

"Will you clear my father’s name from the 
shame you cast upon it if I consent to do that ?” 

"No, I’ll not ! That would be blackening my 
own. As you know, I have made myself a name 
second to none in my sphere of life. It must not 
be dishonored.” 

"While my father, who served his country and 
made a record for himself in the field, must rest 
in his grave a dishonorable cheat. You want my 
forgiveness. I give it to you thus, and thus, and 
thus !” And with Dr. Traynell’s cane, which had 
been left standing beside the bed, she struck the 
dying man thrice across the face and left him. 

Dr. Traynell, on hearing her retiring, stepped 
into another room, and when she was downstairs 
hurried back to his patient, whom he found gasp- 
ing for breath, with three ugly red marks on his 
face. 

Not another word spoke he, in spite of all the 
doctor’s care and attention in the two days he yet 
lingered. 

And when he was dead a careful search of his 
effects revealed nothing more to the doctor con- 
cerning the story of which he had caught a few 
sentences. 

. The words he had overheard from Leah’s lips 
were : "Stake Leah . . . you said he cheated 

. . . shot him down . . . kill you, 

kill you, fiend incarnate, as you killed my father 


33 


Leave Me My Honor. 

. . . and you, Mason Worrell, were power- 
less. . . . You shot him down before me, 

and now what do you want with me, after eigh- 
teen years?” And, in addition, Worrell’s all- 
important admission: “Your father did not 
cheat at cards, Leah. I made it appear so to the 
others by sleight-of-hand.” 

And he carefully wrote down every word in 
his memorandum-book. 

Leah, when she rejoined Ralph and Mabel, was 
livid with passion. 

At her request, they took her home instantly. 
On reaching there she desired Mabel to come and 
see her the following day, and she no sooner found 
herself alone with her husband than she threw 
herself on the floor at his feet, a prey to such a 
paroxysm of passion and grief as Ralph hoped 
never to witness again. 

“I struck him, Ralph,” she said; “struck Ma- 
son Worrell across the face with a heavy cane. 
I hope I killed him. He — oh, Ralph!” and here 
she wept aloud. “He made it appear to you and 
the others, by a sleight-of-hand trick, that my 
father, my dear, old, white-haired, honorable 
father, cheated at cards — and he wanted my for- 
giveness ! I gave it to him. Ha ! ha ! ha I ‘I long 
to have you clasp my hand just once, Leah, and 
say, “Mason Worrell, I forgive you as I hope 
to be forgiven,” he said to me. ‘Will you clear 
my father’s name before witnesses if I do that?’ 
I asked. And he answered, ‘No, I’ll not! That 
would be blackening my own. You know I have 
made myself a name second to none in my sphere 
of life. It must not be dishonored.’ When he 


34 


Leave Me My Honor. 

said that I thought of my father, shot down by 
that wretch, lying dishonored in his grave, and 
fury seized me. I must strike him; and I did. 
For eighteen years, Ralph, it has been my bitter 
portion to carry about with me wherever I went 
the knowledge that you and two others held my 
father guilty of the mean act for which men 
were shot down like dogs in those days, beyond 
the Rockies. But I knew he was innocent. Wor- 
rell knew it, too, and to-day he acknowledged to 
me that he shot my father because he thought I 
would be glad, in my lonely helplessness, to take 
refuge in his arms ; for he loved me. He did not 
dream there were three other men who would 
have been willing to take the lonely, shame- 
stricken orphan to their hearth and home. No; 
he counted you out — and found out his mistake. 
The shame, Ralph, has been in my heart for eigh- 
teen long years — yet he would not, even on his 
deathbed, take it publicly from me. And he, the 
Hon. Mason Worrell, was beaten with a cane, 
like any other cur! Ha! ha! Like any other 
curr 

And with one last hysterical laugh the poor 
woman sank in a swoon, utterly exhausted. 

Ralph hastily sent for Dr. Russell. 

The latter’s gentle words failed to make her 
raise her eyes toward him, but she took the medi- 
cine he prepared for her, and shortly after went 
to sleep, to the great relief of her husband, whose 
concern for her condition was only equaled by the 
alarm he felt at the tale she had brought him. 

He sent a trusty messenger to the Continental 


35 


Leave Me My Honor. 

for news of Mason Worrell, and when he found 
that he was still living but speechless, he thanked 
God in his heart and prayed that he might remain 
speechless to the end — and so it happened. 


36 Leave Me My Honor. 


V. 

Leah did not awaken until late next morning, 
and she looked so thoroughly refreshed and 
seemed to enjoy her breakfast so heartily that her 
husband did not hesitate to ask her for a fuller 
account of her visit to Mason Worrell. 

‘‘I have ascertained that the wretch is still 
alive,” he said, with a sigh, when she had con- 
cluded her pathetic story, ‘'alive but speechless, 
and Dr. Traynell is with him. Let us pray that 
he may never regain his speech. He might wreak 
vengeance upon you for those blows by proclaim- 
ing to the world your father’s story, as he chooses 
to tell it, and Dr. Traynell would prove a willing 
aid to him.” 

Leah wept. “It would be a fine thing, wouldn’t 
it,” she sobbed, “to have people saying, ‘There 
goes Mrs. Wentworth, whose father — whom she 
never mentions, by the way — was a gambler and 
a cheat.’ ” 

“Never mind that, love, you are Mrs. Went- 
worth, you know, my own sweet wife, and your 
husband’s name is stainless.” 

“Yes, I know, Ralph, but the injustice of it! 
That man, that murderer, that inhuman fiend hon- 
ored — my father, the high-minded, true gentle- 
man, dishonored!” 

“Let us drop the subject, Leah, you are excit- 


37 


Leave Me My Honor, 

ing yourself uselessly. Get yourself ready and 
go out, but not to Mabel’s. I am going there af- 
ter I have attended to some business at my office, 
and will tell them what occurred yesterday. It 
would excite you too much. Dr. Bob is not com- 
ing to-day.” 

“Was he here last night?” 

“Yes, he came in a little before twelve to exam- 
ine me. There is a true gentleman, Leah, I like 
him so much.” 

“So do I like him,” she said, “but he is always 
rather rude and rough with me. I attempted a 
flirtation with him, Ralph, and it made him wild. 
Even my tears had no effect on him, though he 
mopped theai off my face with a big linen hand- 
kerchief, which he pulled out of his hip pocket, 
and then stuffed into his breast, tears and all.” 

Ralph laughed loud. She was only trying to 
amuse herself with the young doctor, and her 
heart was not touched, he thought. Yet — he had 
seen the wistful look, and it spoke of passionate 
longing and suffering. “Little wife,” he said, 
“if anything happened to me suddenly, and you 
needed a strong arm to lean on, I would like you 
to take Dr. Bob’s. Always remember that.” 

“If anything happened to you suddenly? What 
do you mean ? Did he say you were seriously ill ? 
Oh, I mentioned the cards more than once; is 
there more trouble coming to me ? Oh, do not die 
and leave me!” 

“Be calm, dear, I am not going to die till my 
time comes.” 

“I could not bear to lose you, Ralph, we have 
been such close friends, such true comrades for 


38 Leave Me My Honor. 

eighteen years, and you have been so kind and lov- 
ing to me, always, my husband/' 

''Yes, love, and you have been kind to me, you 
have let me into your heart a little way " 

"Though not all the way. That is how you 
were going to finish your sentence, I know. It is 
sad. I have read of the passion you want, and I 
feel that I could love just like that. If there had 
been children, it might have been different, but 
none came to us. As it is, I love you very dearly, 
Ralph." 

"Well, go out now, and get the cobwebs out of 
your mind. We have been quite too sentimental 
for an old married couple. Kiss me and let me 
go. 

"I wonder why he said that," she thought when 
he was gone. " Tf anything happened to me sud- 
denly’ — oh, I must know what occurred here last 
night. I will go to the doctor’s, he shall tell me." 

She rang for her maid, and in a few moments 
she was being driven rapidly in the direction of 
Dr. Russell’s office. 

She found him in and plunged at once into the 
business that brought her. "You were with my 
husband last night, you examined him," she said. 
"Is his heart seriously affected? Tell me." 

"Did Mr. Wentworth send you here?" he re- 
joined. 

"No, but he said something to me this morning 
which made me think that perhaps he was slowly 
dying before me, and I wanted to know if such 
were the fact." 

Dr. Bob said nothing. He looked down and 
played with the masonic insignia on his watch fob. 


39 


Leave Me My Honor. 

‘‘It is true, then? Oh, Dr. Russell, save him for 
me. You are skilful, save him, I cannot, cannot 
give up Ralph \” 

“Quiet yourself, Mrs. Wentworth,” said the 
doctor at last, “your husband is not seriously ill, 
that is, there is no immediate danger. He has 
heart disease, but if he is careful, he may live to a 
great age. His future good health depends 
largely upon his own conduct, his discretion, his 
perseverance, as I told him last night.” 

“Can you look me in the face. Dr. Bob, and tell 
me that my husband is not going to die sud- 
denly ?” 

“I cannot say that, Mrs. Wentworth, he is in 
God’s hands. Keep his mind free from care and 
worry ; he was greatly disturbed last night. Are 
you feeling well, yourself, to-day? Let me feel 
your pulse.” 

She bared her wrist for him, and he took the 
soft round arm in his hand. How beautiful it 
was, how soft and white, — he dropped it suddenly 
as if it were a coal of fire, and bit his lip and 
frowned. 

“Go home and rest,” he said, “and have some 
cheerful companion with you. You are not fit to 
be out to-day, nor fit to be in your room alone. 
Don’t worry about your husband, look cheerfully 
on everything, everything.” 

He followed her to the door and with his hand 
on her shoulder, his kind eyes looking into hers, 
he said once more, “Do not worry about anything, 
Mrs. Wentworth.” 

Who should be passing by, as she reached 
the sidewalk, but Max Stanhope. 


40 Leave Me My Honor. 

"'Can you come with me for a short drive, 
Max?” she said. 

“Yes,” he answered, “I can give you an hour if 
you like.” 

“Come on, then.” 

“Why, what’s the trouble, dear Leah,” he 
asked, as she burst into tears as soon as he had 
seated himself beside her in her carriage. 

“Have you heard about Mason Worrell?” 

“About his being in a dying condition at the 
Continental, do you mean? Yes, the papers are 
full of it.” 

“What do they say?” 

“Oh, chiefly that Dr. Traynell is with him and 
that he is not expected to live the day out, and 
they give a sketch of his career.” 

“Do they say nothing about the caning he re- 
ceived ?” 

“No, Leah; what caning?” 

“You did not see Ralph to-day, then?” 

“No, I left the house this morning early and 
have not been there since. I was on my way 
home when I met you.” 

“I beat him across the face with a cane, yester- 
day, Max.” 

“You, Leah?” 

“Yes, he sent for me to ask forgiveness of me 
for murdering my father and branding him a 
cheat. He acknowledged to me that he made it 
appear to you three by a sleight-of-hand trick 
that my father cheated.” 

“Is it possible ! Many a time I did think, Leah, 
that Colonel Emmet, that fine old gentleman, your 
father, could not have been guilty of that act — ^yet 


41 


Leave Me My Honor. 

— he had the gambling fever and would have 
staked you, his only child. That made me hard in 
my judgment of him. But Mason Worrell — the 
Honorable Mason Worrell — to acknowledge that 
he tricked us and deliberately murdered your fa- 
ther before our eyes ! Was any one near when he 
told you? Dr. Traynell, perhaps?” 

“No, we were alone, and he would not even let 
me call Ralph in to hear him say that.” 

“The cowardly cur ! He sent a note to me, you 
know, telling me that he was at the Continental, 
dying, and asking me to bring you to his bed-side. 
Mabel thought it better to tell Ralph first. Do 
you think more trouble will come of this, Leah? 
You may count on my friendship always, you 
know.” 

“Yes, I know, Max, but it is not Mason Wor- 
rell that is causing me most anxiety, it is Ralph. 
Max, he will die and leave me.” 

“Nonsense. He will die when his time comes, of 
course, like the rest of us, but he is well 
enough, barring a little trouble with his heart. 
You women are so foolish ; you butterflies of 
fashion, especially. You marry us and tell us 
you have no heart to give us, and flirt outrageous- 
ly with all the young men in your reach, and when 
we have a pain or ache, you weep and worry about 
us, your cold-blooded assertion and giddy conduct 
to the contrary. I know it. Mabel does the 
same thing. When I married her fourteen years 
ago, she told me she would take me but had no 
love to give me — I must be a strangely unlovable 
man ; you could not love me either, Leah — and 
here, not long ago, when I was in that railway col- 


42 Leave Me My Honor, 

lision and had a little bark peeled off the back of 
my hand, she went on terribly about it, just when 
she was in the thick of her flirtation with that 
lumbering giant of a millionaire’s son, whom she 
shipped to Europe. I felt pretty miserable at that 
time, Leah ; thought she was going to claim from 
me what I told her she might have if ever she 
learned to love another man, her freedom. That 
was our bargain, you know, for me to step down 
and out whenever she asked me. But she didn’t. 
She put a flea in his ear instead, and he went 
abroad. Oh, you married flirts; how you draw 
them on, the young softies who have no concep- 
tion of the word ^honor,’ and let them flutter 
about you, squeeze your hands and kiss you, per- 
haps ! But when it comes to facing dishonor with 
them, ninety per cent, of you cry halt, even those 
of you who are actually in love with the other 
man. As Ralph said to me not long ago, ‘That 
man’s honor is safe who has a flirt for a wife.’ 
Women love to play with fire, married ones es- 
pecially, but they handle the coals carefully and 
seldom get burned. Now I have succeeded in 
making you laugh, I see.” 

“You have driven away the vapors. Max, and I 
feel better and brighter, as I always do after 
having been with you — and don’t run away with 
the idea that you are not a lovable man, just be- 
cause Mabel says that, and because I chose 
Ralph.” 

“Yes, but if it won’t bring me what I have been 
trying to win for fourteen years, my wife’s 
heart — I guess we can’t have everything in this 
>vorld all at once: and when she’s old and 


Leave Me My Honor, 43 

wrinkled and toothless, perhaps she’ll have to turn 
to me; there’ll be nobody else.” 

^‘Just imagine Mabel wrinkled and toothless, 
turning to you, another old fogy !” broke in Leah, 
with a laugh. “But we are getting old, Max, all 
the same. Here I am thirty-five years old al- 
ready.” 

“And I’m thirty-nine, a tender spring chicken. 
Say, if you’ve had enough of me. I’ll jump out,” 
and he jumped out without waiting for the car- 
riage to come to a full stop. 

A few minutes later his wife was relating to 
him all that Ralph Wentworth had just com- 
municated to her. 

He heard it all without comment, and then told 
her in his turn how he had met Leah in front of 
Dr. Bob’s house and had succeeded in brightening 
her up a bit. “She was very doleful,” he said, 
“crying miserably, and not because of the Wor- 
rell affair, but because she was afraid Ralph was 
going to die and leave her. I wonder, now, 
whether my wife would worry if I had heart 
disease, my wife who is just now a picture of 
comfort and as beautiful as an old painting, — 
would she worry, think you, if her husband had 
heart disease?” 

“No, she wouldn’t,” Mabel answered, “she 
would go about as usual, having a gay time, and 
let him die.” 

“Oh, Mabel !” 

“Leave me ; I want to dress.” 

“Give me a kiss.” 

“No, sir, leave me, I say, or I’ll ring for my 
maid.” 


44 Leave Me My Honor. 

‘‘Ring for her, and Til act the fool before her/^ 

“What's come over you?" 

“I don't know, but I think it’s Leah." 

“Leah?" 

“Yes, what she said, I mean." 

“You are crazy. Go out of here, I tell you." 

“Kiss me then, on the lips." 

“I won't." 

“Why? You've kissed me on the lips before to- 
day. You bent over and kissed me when Dr. 
Bob was doing something to my hand and I 
fainted. Kiss me that way, Mabel, just once, 
and I won't bother you again for a month." 

“I thought you were unconscious at that time." 

“So I was, but that kiss brought me to." 

“Pshaw, I just played that bit of sentimentality 
off before Dr. Bob. He thought I meant it too, 
and gave me such a smile ! No wonder Leah fell 
in love with him." 

“She is not in love with him." 

“She is.” 

• ••*••• 

Max Stanhope went next to the Continental, 
and was admitted to Worrell's room. 

He found him lying with his eyes wide open 
staring at the ceiling. Dr. Traynell was with 
him. 

“Does he know me, do you think?" Max asked. 

The sick man dropped his eyelids. 

“That means ‘yes,’ " said Dr. Traynell. 

“Have you anything to communicate to me 
privately?" Max continued. 

The eyes remained open. 

“About Leah?" he whispered. 


45 


Leave Me My Honor. 

The eyes seemed to open wider. 

“She told me what you acknowledged to her.” 

No movement. 

“Did you trick us?” 

The eyes were set. 

Max hurried to take Ralph the news and both 
men felt relieved that the scoundrel had died 
without making Leah any further trouble. 

That night the papers set forth in big type : 

“Death’s hand on Mason Worrell.” And be- 
neath the head line: “Hon. Mason Worrell, Sec- 
retary of State, died at 4.30 o’clock this afternoon 
at the Continental Hotel. The interment will 
take place at Washington, D. C. A special train 
bearing the remains of Mr. Worrell will leave 
Philadelphia at 9.45 o’clock to-morrow morning 
for the Capital City. 

“Mr. Worrell’s illness began several months 
ago and he came to Philadelphia for medical 
treatment. Yesterday he suffered a stroke of 
apoplexy, which proved fatal.” 

Then came a eulogy of his grand career as a 
public man and a diplomat, ending with : “Mason 
Worrell was a man of steadfast conviction, un- 
swerving honesty and undoubted ability.” 


46 Leave Me My Honor. 


VI. 

When Stanhope told Wentworth of Mason 
Worrell's death, they were in Ralph’s smoking 
room ; and when each had expressed his satisfac- 
tion at the good ending of a bad business and 
were puffing blue rings steadily, Max broke the 
silence. 

^Isn’t it singular,” he remarked, ''that some 
men — live men with good looks, ambition and 
energy, are totally unable to inspire the passion 
of love, while others — the ugliest, slowest of 
slow coaches, utterly worthless specimens, are 
worshiped? Why is it? Can you tell?” 

"Give a case in point.” 

"Myself and Silly Henderson.” 

"Max !” exclaimed Ralph, laughing. "To name 
yourself in the same breath with Silly !” 

"He has a wife who worships him.” 

"Yes, I often wonder what that beautiful wom- 
an sees in that hideous caricature of a man. 
'Silly’ he is rightly named; but you, surely you 
don’t want to tell me that you are the man who 
cannot inspire love ? Why, half the women in the 
city are wild about you, and you know it.” 

"But not my wife.” 

"But not your wife — well — hm — I’m not so 
sure about that.” 

"What hypothesis do you go upon?” 


47 


Leave Me My Honor, 

''Her face. I saw her looking at you once, and 
I am a keen reader. It was the same — the same as 
when Leah looked at Dr. Bob.’" 

"You imagine that Leah is in love with that 
young man, don’t you?” 

"No, I do not imagine it.” 

"Tell me how she looked at Dr. Bob.” 

"Wistfully, with passion repressed, longingly.” 

"And you say that Mabel looked at me like 
that? Why, man, she has just told me that she 
kissed me tenderly, when my hand was hurt, 
merely to play off sentimentality on Dr. Bob, and 
she laughed at him because the green gosling be- 
lieved her and gave her a beautiful smile.” 

"That expression was there, I tell you.” 

"Why should she look at me in that way? She 
knows that I love every inch of her. I would 
give half my fortune to be Mabel’s chosen lover 
for one whole day and night.” 

"Perhaps that is not for us. Leah does not 
love me either, as I would be loved, but I have 
made her life bright and must be satisfied. I 
would be willing to die on the spot, if I could die 
Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms.” 

"She chose you, that time, you remember, when 
she had three other chances, all better than yours.” 

"I know she did, but I do not fill her heart after 
all these years, and she — she loves Dr. Bob — and 
I, Max, have heart disease, fully developed. He 
said so last night after he had examined me.” 

"Who?” 

"Dr. Russell.” 

"But people with heart disease live to old age 
sometimes.” 


48 Leave Me My Honor^ 

“I won’t, I feel it. The summons will come 
soon and I must leave her to — hand me that pack- 
age from the table behind you, I must take an- 
other powder.” 

Max looked at his friend and saw that he was 
in pain. ''Shall I call any one — Leah?” he 
asked. 

"She has not come in yet,” Ralph replied. "I 
told her to go out, to distract her mind, and she 
is long about getting back. She grieves so about 
that stain on her father’s memory, you have no 
idea how that eats into her proud heart.” 

"There is something else that frets her worse 
than that.” 

"What is it?” 

"The condition of your health. She does not 
want to lose you.” 

"How do you know that? Have you seen her 
lately ?” 

"Boys mustn’t tell tales out of school.” 

"You have seen her to-day?” 

"Yes.” 

"I wish she would not worry about me.” 

"Oh, she was laughing heartily when I left her : 
and here she comes ; and Mabel is with her, by 
gad, and I’m due in ten minutes at the Union 
League. I’ll get out before they come down, — 
but say, when did my wife look that way at me ?” 

"Oh, one day, I forget just on what occasion, 
when you were parrying jokes with Leah/’ 

That night Max took his wife to the opera. 
Their box was a cynosure, and soon visitors be- 
gan to drop in. He gave place to Mabel’s latest 


49 


Leave Me My Honor. 

fancy, an author of some renown, and took up a 
position in the back of the box where he could 
watch them unobserved. 

He saw the writer flush up when Mabel smiled 
at him, and directly after, she glanced about the 
box uneasily, and stifled a yawn behind her fan. 
Then she took up her opera glasses and scanned 
the other boxes, the parquet and circle, and finally 
the whole house. She answered in kind the nods 
of her many friends and acquaintances, then 
turning to her companion she inquired if Mr. 
Stanhope had left the house. Her husband 
stepped forward and stood behind her chair, but 
she gave no sign that she was aware of his pres- 
ence. 

On the way home in the carriage Max 
leaned over her. “We have come to a dark place 
now,’^ he said, “and I want a kiss.’^ 

“I hope you may get it,” she answered. 

“I can take as many as I have a mind to, you 
poor weak little midget.” 

“I thought you said you wanted a kiss.” 

“So I do.” 

“No, you don’t, you only want to take one.” 

“Won’t you give me one ? That was such a good 
one you gave me when my hand was hurt. I 
quite long for another like it. Come, just one 
like that, and I won’t ask for another for a long, 
long time.” 

“Still harping on that kiss. I am surprised. 
It was a silly thing for me to do. I will never be 
so foolish again. Here we are at home.” 

“And I am coming upstairs with you.” 

“Not to-night, Maximilian, some other time,” 


50 Leave Me My Honor. 

and she whisked lightly away from him, after he 
had helped her out, and when he reached her room 
he found the doors locked against him, both from 
the hall and from his own room. 

He settled himself in an easy chair to wait 
until she was sleeping soundly, and then he deftly 
picked the lock of the communicating door. 

As he stepped across the threshold she moved 
her head restlessly on her pillow, and she sobbed 
in her sleep. He knelt down close by her, inhaled 
her sweet breath, impressed a soft kiss on her lips 
and returned to his chamber without closing the 
door again. 

Mabel’s slumbers did not cease until near day- 
light, when she sat up in bed and stared about 
her. 

'‘Why, I locked that door last night,” she mur- 
mured to herself. “What, does this mean ?” 

Out of her downy nest she crept and over to 
the door on tiptoe. Before her, propped up by 
pillows, almost sitting in bed, was her husband, 
sound asleep, and by his side, on the silken cover- 
lid, lay a bouquet of white roses she had picked 
and taken to Leah the day before, still held to- 
gether with a few strands of her own golden hair, 
with which she had bound them. 

She walked quietly over to the bed, picked up 
the roses, threw them down under it, and leaned 
over the sleeping man to study his features. Her 
movement, light as it was, disturbed him. He 
was dreaming. “Leah, Leah,” he whispered ; and 
after a short pause, slowly came forth the burning 
words, “to die Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms !” 


Leave Me My Honor, 51 

Mabel left the room as silently as she had en- 
tered it and pulled the door to behind her. 

When Max awoke, he did not at first think of 
the door he had opened, but by the time he was 
ready to go down, he remembered it as well as the 
flowers he had taken to bed with him at the same 
time. He picked them up, assuming that he had 
thrown them under the bed during the night, and 
put them into his breast pocket, but on his way out 
he picked up something else. 

Mabel was awake when he opened the door and 
greeted him with a malicious smile. 

He sat down on the bed and toyed with one of 
her hands. “You came in to me last night,” he 
said. “I found one of your rings on the carpet.” 

He looked at her searchingly when he said this 
and saw her change color as she held up her 
finger and requested him to replace the ring. 

He complied with her wish, then pulled her arm 
around his neck and stooped until his head rested 
on her shoulder. 

She submitted passively. “Let me know when 
you are ready to stop fooling,” she said. “I 
would like to take another nap ; it is early yet.” 

He stayed where he was, however, and not until 
her heart beat regularly and she slept with a 
smile on her lips, did he gently release himself 
and leave her. 

“Do not disturb your mistress,” he said to the 
Abigail, “let her have her sleep out.” And a mo- 
ment later he went out. 

Half an hour before luncheon he was home 
again, and as he kissed his wife in her boudoir, 
his vest took a notion to bulge out, and she saw 


52 Leave Me My Honor, 

in his inside pocket the roses she had thrown under 
the bed. 

“Where did you get these things?’' she said, 
pulling them out. 

“I took them from Leah’s work table in the 
sitting room,” he answered, “on my way out of 
Wentworth’s yesterday, a little while after you 
and she came in. I saw you pick them and fix 
them up for Leah, and — and I wanted some white 
roses, and so I took them. Leah won’t mind, I 
am sure.” 

“Why didn’t you ask me to pick you some or 
cut them yourself? We have plenty of them in 
bloom.” 

“You may pick me a bouquet to-day.” 

“Thank you, you may pick it yourself. Do you 
want these things any more?” holding up the 
withered bouquet. 

“Yes, put them back where you found them.” 
But she threw them into the grate and watched 
them burn up with a look of satisfaction which 
puzzled her husband. 

“Why did you do that, Mabel?” he asked. 

“Because I felt like it,” she answered. 

“Little spitfire!” he said, hugging her to him, 
“you are mine, puss.” 

“What if I asked to be freed from you now.” 

He looked at her aghast. “Mabel, you surely 
will never ask me to do that, now,” he said. 

“Don’t be too sure. If Ralph Wentworth suc- 
cumbs to the heart disease and Leah becomes a 
widow, I shall want a divorce from you and be- 
come some sort of a widow too.” 

“Do you mean that, Mabel?” 


53 


Leave Me My Honor. 

do.” 

“Then you have given your heart to a man.” 

“I have.” 

“It is not the author?” 

“No, it is not the author. The author can't 
hold a candle to the man I love; but let me go, 
do you hear the lunch bell ?” 

Max walked soberly down with her to luncheon. 
“I know now what the look meant,” he thought. 
“ ‘Wistfully, with repressed passion, longing- 
ly,’ — certainly. She was ‘wistfully, with repressed 
passion, longingly' wishing herself free from me, 
that's what ; and I'm a numbskull to expect any- 
thing else from her. Gad, what fools we mortals 
be ! Last night when she looked around the box 
and surveyed the house with her glass, I could 
have sworn she was searching for me. Fiddle- 
sticks! She was searching for the other fellow, 
and felt disappointed that he didn't show up ; and 
when her heart beat so against my ear this morn- 
ing, it was anger made it throb till she was ex- 
hausted and slept. She burned the roses up be- 
cause she would not allow anything belonging to 
her, or that she had handled, to be so near to my 
heart ; but what the dickens was she doing in my 
room? I’ll bet she didn't come in at all; just 
rolled the ring in to make a fool of me ; the smile 
with which she greeted me had enough of deviltry 
in it to account for all that.” 

That night they went to a ball at the Academy, 
where they met Ralph and Leah and Dr. Bob. 

Ralph was not feeling well, and was advised by 
the doctor to go home early, but his wife was en- 


54 Leave Me My Honor. 

joying herself, and he paid no heed to the wiser 
counsel. 

Twice that night Leah waltzed with Max Stan- 
hope, and Mabel sat out both dances with Leah^s 
husband. 

She was tired, she said to her partners, and 
would rest with Mr. Wentworth. 

^‘She is lovely to-night,” Ralph said, his eyes 
resting with pride on Leah as she floated below 
him in the arms of her partner. “They're a hand- 
some couple, don’t you think so?” 

“Yes,” said Mabel, “they seem to be made for 
each other.” 

“Made for each other, nonsense ! Max was made 
for you. You are as handsome as Leah is, in 
your way, and Max loves the ground you walk 
on.” 

Mabel smiled. “How do you know that ?” she 
asked. 

“By every way a man can show his love for his 
wife.” 

“How do you show your love for your wife?” 

“By surrounding her with all that is bright 
and gay, watching over her with the tenderest 
care and solicitude, and making any sacrifice to 
secure her happiness. I love Leah, you know 
that.” 

“Yes, many men love her,” she answered. 

“And you, too, you arrant little flirt. Both of 
you can wind them around your fingers tight 
enough to make them squirrn. Max and I have 
often watched you and secretly enjoyed the fun 
you were having. Who’s your latest admirer, 
the author?” 


55 


Leave Me My Honor, 

“Yes, the author. He gave me a poem last 
night at the opera, a tribute to my beauty, and 
Max didn’t even get jealous when I stuck it into 
my bosom before him.” 

“He knew better than to do that. He knew his 
wife, evidently, as I know Leah. Max and I 
trust our wives. You love Max?” 

“Yes, as you love Leah; but here they come, 
and oh, how happy they look.” 

“May I have the pleasure of dancing the next 
waltz with Mrs. Stanhope?” said her husband, as 
they came up. 

“I promised it to Dr. Bob early in the evening,” 
she replied. 

The rejected partner put his hand on his heart 
and bowed with mock politeness to his wife. 
“Then I will dance again with Leah,” he said. 
“She never refuses to waltz with me as two men 
came up to claim Leah and her for the next dance. 

“You are not going to dance to-night, I hear, 
my boy,” he added, turning to his friend Went- 
worth. 

“I dare not,” was the reply. “Dr. Bob wants 
me to go home early, but Leah’s having a good 
time, and I see no harm in my sitting here and 
watching her. Your wife and mine are the hand- 
somest women here to night and the best dressed, 
and that’s saying a good deal.” 

“Yes,” the younger man sighed, “but they don’t 
love us.” 

“Mabel loves you all right. What ails you, 
man, that you can’t see it? Why, she told me ih’s 
moment that she loves you.” 


56 Leave Me My Honor, 

'‘How did she say it? What were you talking 
of?” 

"Let me see — we were talking of flirting, and 
she said, — but say, old fellow, she may not like me 
to repeat to you what she tells me — anyhow. Til 
tell you what she said just before you came up 
when I asked her if she did not love you.” 

"And she answered ” 

"She answered ‘Yes, as you love Leah.’ ” 

Max grew red and white. "Who is the man 
with whom she is now dancing?” he asked. 

"Why, don’t you know ? He is the son of Judge 
Hapnett and the nephew of Governor Fourfield.” 

"The nephew of the man who was with us that 
night out west?” 

"Yes, and the Governor will be here to-night.” 

"Does Leah know?” 

"Yes, and so does Mabel. He is head over 
ears in love with your wife — young Hapnett, I 
mean. I’m surprised that you haven’t met him 
before nor noticed their intimacy. The author, I 
suppose, superseded him. Fine looking like his 
uncle, isn’t he?” 

"Yes,” said Max, "but I must hunt up my 
partner. I don’t want to miss the next dance.” 

He hurried away but came back again almost 
immediately. 

"Look, Ralph, there is Governor Fourfield 
now,” he said, "on the arm* of our own Governor, 
and they are shaking hands with our wives. We 
must go, too, and greet him.” 

Governor Fourfield saw them coming and held 
out a hand to each. "Here we are all three to- 
gether again,” he said, "with Leah, Leah the beau- 


57 


Leave Me My Honor, 

tiful, — and the other is lying dead in Washington. 
I will be at your house to-morrow, Wentworth; 
your wife whispered to me just now that she has 
something important to tell me, and. Stanhope, I 
hope to see you there too. Your little Baltimore 
belle has blossomed like a rose. She has promised 
to dance with me after I have had a hop with Leah. 
I am more than glad to have met you here to- 
night.’’ 

Mabel was dancing with Dr. Bob. A very 
slow, dreamy waltz this was, and Mabel, as she 
glided along, asked her partner if he did not think 
Leah was charming that night. 

‘^Mrs. Wentworth is brilliantly beautiful,” he 
replied, ‘‘she is lovely at all times.” 

“Are you not going to ask her to dance with 
you ? You haven’t yet done so, she tells me.” 

“Does she expect me to dance with her? I 
prefer not doing so, — yet, if she expects it ” 

“She does; she has kept a blank on her pro- 
gramme for you.” 

Just before the waltz quadrille, they were all 
grouped .about Ralph Wentworth, Leah and Ma- 
bel, Dr. Bob and Max. Dr. Bob had asked Leah 
for the dance and she had not refused, while Max 
had declared that he was tired of it all and would 
stay with Ralph. Mabel moved about so that 
she stood at her husband’s shoulder, then looking 
straight into his eyes she said, “I would like to 
have you for a partner in the waltz quadrille. 
Max ; Mr. Hapnett does not dance well. Come, 
let’s get in the same set with Leah and the doc- 
tor.” 

During the dance Max noticed how his wife 


58 Leave Me My Honor. 

clung to him, hung on him, in fact, whenever his 
arms encircled her. “You are tired,’’ he said, 
“do you want to go home ?” 

“Yes, after this set,” she replied. “Leah is 
going, too, after she has had her dance with Dr. 
Bob. I had to ask him to dance with her, what 
do you think of it ?” 

“Did Leah tell you to ask him?” 

“She did.” 

“She had better devote her spare time to Ralph, 
she won’t have him long.” 

“No, it will not be long now before she is free.” 
Mabel sighed as her husband released her for the 
next figure. 


Leave Me My Honor, 


S9 


yii. 

you pay a visit to my husband to-morrow ?” 
Leah asked Dr. Russell when she had the oppor- 
tunity. 

‘'Yes/’ he said, "to-morrow morning.” 

"You might have given him permission to 
dance just once with me to-night. He is passion- 
ately fond of dancing, and must have felt sad to be 
so entirely out of it ; but he has not been lonely, 
there has been first one and then another friend 
with him all evening. He was particularly bright 
when Max was with him, or Mabel.” 

"You have been watching him, evidently.” 

"Oh, yes, and if he had been dull a moment or 
alone, would have gone to him and stayed with 
him.” 

"You love your husband, then?” 

"Yes, doctor, I love him. He is the best man 
God ever created. I realize it now, now when I 
feel that I shall lose him.” 

"Does your husband know that you love him — 
in that way?” 

"Not yet.” 

"Then tell him immediately, but carefully, Mrs. 
Wentworth, carefully ; a sudden shock would not 
be good for him. Even sudden joy might unnerve 
him.” 


6o Leave Me My Honor. 

‘‘He has told you our story, I can see that.” 

“Yes, he has told me it, and I am glad, glad 
from my heart, that you have learned to love him 
at last.” 

On the night Dr. Bob examined Ralph Went- 
worth an important conversation had taken place 
between them: 

“I am sorry to tell you, sir,” said the doctor, as 
he laid aside his instruments, “that yours is a case 
of fully developed heart disease ; the most inex- 
perienced physician could tell you that. You 
must take the utmost care of yourself and keep 
perfectly quiet if you want to live to be an old 
man.” 

“I expected to hear that,” the invalid answered, 
“and now sit down, I want to talk to you. I mar- 
ried my wife eighteen years ago and have done 
everything in my power to fill her life and make 
her happy since. Now if I die, she will be lonely 
and miserable, and I desire to prevent that. 
She is peculiarly situated. She is entirely alone 
in the world, very proud and sensitive ; and there 
is a terror hanging over her, the fear of some act 
of her father’s becoming public. Dr. Traynell 
loves her, but would give her trouble if he could ; 
and somehow, I feel that she will eventually be 
in his power. I want some man, upright and hon- 
orable, to guard Leah against Dr. Traynell, to 
avert from her all sorrow, to make her life bright 
after I am gone. Will you be that man?” 

‘T, Mr. Wentworth? What do you mean?” 

“I mean for you to marry her wher I am gone 
and make her happy.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 6i 

''How do you know that I could do such an out- 
rageous thing even if I should be willing? I hope 
you don’t think I have improper thoughts about 
your wife, sir ; I have not. I wouldn’t allow my- 
self to think of a married woman!” 

"I know that and therefore trust you, and for 
that very reason ask you to promise me to marry 
Leah and watch over her when I am no longer 
here to do so. I love her, doctor, and would 
fain protect her, even from the grave. She does 
not love me as I wish to be loved, but she respects 
me and regards me as a friend and comrade. In 
eighteen years I have not been able to win her 
whole heart, but she gave me what she could — and 
now promise me, promise me that you will ask her 
to marry you when I am dead.” 

"I would marry no woman without first gaining 
her love.” 

"But if she gives you that, will you ask her ?” 

"Yes, then I will ask her.” 

"I want you to do it six months after I am 
dead.” 

"That will be too soon, Mr. Wentworth; she 
will grieve for you longer than that, be assured.” 

"I wish her not to grieve: that’s just what I’m 
pleading with you for; do not let her grieve or 
worry about anything, about anything, do you 
hear me! Oh, relieve my mind and do what I 
ask ! I will not be here long, I may go quite sud- 
denly ; let me hug the comfort to my heart that 
she, my beautiful Leah, will be safe with you.” 

"Do not excite yourself, dear sir; I promise 
to ask her to marry me six months after your 


62 Leave Me My Honor, 

demise, to make her my wife if she be willing 
and loves me. But I hope you will be careful 
and live a long time. Good-bye, sir, and thank 
you for your confidence; it is not misplaced.’^ 


Leave Me My Honor, 


63 


VIII. 

On his return from Mason Worrell’s funeral, 
Dr. Traynell called on Mrs. Stanhope. “I want 
an interview here with Leah,” he said abruptly. 
“Her husband has forbidden me the house, and I 
must see her privately on a very important mat- 
ter concerning Mason Worrell.” 

“Can you not tell me what it is and let me 
break it to her? Dm sure it’s bad news 

“It is bad news and I must tell her myself.” 

“Can’t you postpone it? Ralph is not so well, 
and she is worried enough just now.” 

“Does she still carry on with Dr. Russell?” 

“No, that is off, I believe.” 

“Then I will wait a while before I speak to her. 
In three weeks I will call here again, and you 
will see that I get an interview, will you not?” 

“If she wishes to meet you after I have men- 
tioned to her your desire for an interview, it shall 
take place here, unless she decides otherwise.” 

“You are not looking well yourself, Mrs. Stan- 
hope. What is it, too much dissipation? It looks 
like worry.” 

“We are all worried about Ralph, he is very 
weak.” 

“He was at the Academy the other evening, at 
the ball ; I read of it in the papers ; he can’t be so 
very ill.” 


64 Leave Me My Honor, 

‘‘He is failing in spite of all the care he re- 
ceives/’ 

“Oh, he’ll pull along a while yet; though a 
sudden shock will kill him eventually.” 

Governor Fourfield was shown to Ralph’s sick 
room when he called the day after the ball, and 
there he found Leah and Mabel and Max Stan- 
hope cheerfully conversing, the sick man in bed, 
propped up by pillows, joining in occasionally. 

Leah told him at once of what had taken place 
in Mason Worrell’s room at the Continental, and 
the Governor applauded with hands and feet when 
she told him how she caned him. 

“He is dead, the trickster,” he remarked, when 
she had finished; “and we three and you, Leah, 
know at last that brave Colonel Emmet rests in 
honor in his far-away grave. After all, we four 
alone were cognizant of the occurrence and with 
us it was safe. Yet I am glad to be assured that 
he, your father, Leah, was not a cheat.” 

“You take my word then. Governor Fourfield, 
against his ? There is no other proof.” 

“I would take your word against the world, 
Leah, Leah the beautiful, for whose sake I am an 
old bachelor. See what you have deprived other 
women of, beauty ; I would like to hug you right 
before your husband.” 

“He may, mayn’t he, Ralph ?” said Leah, as she 
went up to the Governor and threw her arms 
about his neck and kissed him twice. 

They all laughed at her impulsive action and at 
the expression of the Governor’s face. 

When the Governor was gone. Max and Mabel 


Leave Me My Honor. 65 

also took tncir departure, and Leah, alone with 
Ralph, read the papers to him and busied herself 
about him until the doctor came. He ordered 
perfect quiet for the invalid and as much sleep 
as he could get. 

The same order was repeated for about ten 
days. On the eleventh the patient seemed better ; 
he was allowed to get up and immediately made 
his way to his wife’s boudoir. 

“Well, this is a welcome surprise,” she ex- 
claimed. “Which do you prefer, the rocker or 
the couch?” 

“The couch, please, I am still very weak; see 
how I tremble with the little exertion of getting 
here.” 

She fixed him on the couch and knelt down be- 
side him. “Fm so pleased to have you here, 
Ralph,” she said, as she kissed him. “It seems 
ages since Fve had my boudoir knight. Did it 
seem long to you ?” 

“Not so very long. Fve had you with me off 
and on a great deal in these last two weeks. You 
seemed to be flitting in and out of my sick room 
continually. You were anxious about me, were 
you not?” 

“But now I am cheerful again and happy ; you 
are better and will soon be well. I want to tell 
you a secret, to make a confession to you, I mean ; 
but I must wait until you are stronger ; a sudden 
shock, even of joy, the doctor says, might not be 
good for you.” And here she snuggled down be- 
side him so that he rested within her arms. Ralph 
looked at her and saw' that her face was slightly 
flushed and her eyes cast down. 


66 Leave Me My Honor. 

"‘Are you resting comfortably?” she asked. 

“Very comfortably,” he replied. ""Now for the 
confession ! What have you done, Leah, that you 
are afraid to look at me?” 

She clasped him tighter and said nothing. 

“What, afraid to tell me? Well, never mind, 
I forgive you, whatever it is, and I feel so unac- 
countably happy all at once here within your 
arms, that I am satisfied to let well enough alone. 
I have never rested with you quite like this be- 
fore, and something tells me that all will be well 
with us soon. Ah, that was a sweet kiss, almost, 
almost the sort of kiss I have been longing to 
get from you for eighteen years. Kiss me again, 
Leah, ah, kiss me. It seems to me that heaven is 
opening here on earth, but my heart — my heart 
can rest when I am no longer in your arms. Kiss 
me, kiss me !” 

""Once more, Ralph, and then you must lie 
quietly in my arms and go to sleep; even joy 
might do you harm. I want you to live, Ralph, 
live long and happily, live for me.” 

""Yes, yes, Leah, but give me the kisses, not one, 
but as many as I want. I can sleep after. I can' 
always sleep, you know.” 

""You must sleep now,” she said, and kissed 
him once more and pressed one of her hands over 
his eyelids. 

""No, no, dear,” he protested, ""keep me in your 
arms. I will be patient and try to sleep.” He 
closed his eyes and lay quiet but not for long. 
""Do you know what your heart says, Leah? It 
says "thump, thump, Fm beating for Ralph; 
thump, thump. I’m beating for Ralph.’ ” 


Leave Me My Honor, 67 

*‘Go to sleep, Ralph, and rest.” 

'‘But why does it do that ? It has never done it 
before.” 

"Go to sleep.” 

"I can't, Leah, it sets me crazy, your heart 
does. Give me your lips again, let me be happy ; 
oh, kiss me, kiss me, hold me close and kiss me! 
Eighteen years is such a long time, Leah. I have 
waited eighteen years and now it says 'thump, 
thump, I’m beating for Ralph,’ and you won’t kiss 
me.” 

"Be quiet, Ralph, do not excite yourself, I’ll 
kiss you to sleep.” 

She kissed him many times, as a woman kisses 
the man she loves, and then : "I love you, Ralph,” 
she whispered at last. 

"You love me? Leah, at last, it is true!” 

"Yes, Ralph, love for you stirred in my heart 
when I thought I would lose you, and I am so 
happy with you, my husband. You couldn’t die 
and leave me now, now that I love you, at last?” 

A deep sigh came from his breast. "I am 
Leah’s lover at last,” he said, "Leah’s lover in 
Leah’s arms — I’m fainting.” 

She jumped up and rang for assistance, but no 
restoratives could revive Ralph Wentworth: he 
was dead. 

He had died on the spot, as he had told Max 
he was willing to do, Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms. 

Leah was heartbroken. "I killed him,” she 
kept repeating to herself, and to the doctor when 
he came. "You warned me that even great joy 
was not good for him, and I told him I loved 
him, and I killed him. Let me die, too ; oh, let me 


68 Leave Me My Honor, 

die, too ! Ralph, Ralph, how could you leave iije ? 
You were all the world to me, Ralph, and you 
died !” 

Mabel was soon by her side and tried to com- 
fort her, but it was in vain. She would not be 
quiet until they drugged her. 

For hours after, when she awoke, she wandered 
about, wringing her hands and calling aloud for 
her departed one, and when Max took her to 
where he lay, and she saw him smiling peacefully 
in death, her heart was rent with grief. 

“Never again, Ralph, never again,"’ she sobbed, 
“will you be Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms.” 

“It was just as he wished to die ; he told me so 
in those very words,” said Max ; and the bereaved 
woman, in her turn, related to him how she had 
learned to love her husband and how he had died 
in her arms on hearing the happy tidings. 

After the funeral, before the will was read, the 
lawyer handed the widow a sealed letter, ad- 
dressed to her in her husband’s handwriting. She 
wept as she noted the clear, clean penmanship, and 
slipped the document into her bosom. “I will 
read it when I am alone,” she said, “it is a mes- 
sage from the dead.” 

The deceased had left everything to her with 
the exception of a few trifling bequests to serv- 
ants, his stable full of blooded horses, which was 
willed to Max, a house she had fancied to Mabel, 
and his valuable library to Dr. Russell. 

Alone in her room in Mabel’s house that night, 
Leah broke the seal of her letter. 

It read as follows : 


Leave Me My Honor. 69 

'‘My dear Wife: — When you read this letter I 
will be lying far away from you, in Mount 
Moriah, and you will miss me and be lonely and 
sad. 

"My heart is heavy for you, and I beg of you to 
call on Dr. Bob for any help you may need in 
any trouble that may befall you. Be guided by 
him, and do what he will ask you to do in six 
months from this date. 

"Beware of Dr. Traynell; he loves you but 
would harm you if he could. If ever he should 
get you into his power or threaten you in any 
way, appeal to Max, Governor Fourfield and Dr. 
Bob. 

"And now, good-bye, till we meet again in 
Heaven. Ralph.’’ 

What were Leah’s feelings as she perused 
these lines will never be told. She wept and 
moaned and wrung her hands in despairing re- 
morse as she now appreciated how much brighter 
she might have made Ralph’s life in the eighteen 
years she had been with him. Even from the 
grave he was trying to brighten hers. 

What it was that Dr. Russell would ask her to 
do in six months, she partly guessed, and all the 
more bitter was her regret that she had allowed 
her heart to stray from Ralph for an instant'. 
"He thought to comfort me,” she muttered, "be- 
cause I loved the doctor, but I do not now and it 
is a punishment. My heart is with you, Ralph, 
in Mount Moriah.” 


70 


Leave Me My Honor, 


IX. 

It was not on Leah alone that the ceremonies 
attendant upon the funeral told with poignant ef- 
fect; her friend Mabel fainted by the side of 
the open grave, and though sufficiently revived to 
ride home in her carriage, she utterly broke down 
on reaching the house, and her frightened hus- 
band sent in haste for Dr. Russell. 

''Do not leave her for a moment to-night,’’ said 
the latter, "she is in a highly hysterical state and 
you are the only one who can do her any good 
to-night.” 

So when she retired. Max went to her room. 

She was lying on her pillow sobbing helplessly. 

Max took her in his arms. 

She clung to him and cried worse than ever. 

"What’s the matter, dear ? Something troubles 
you, I know; you are getting fearfully thin; 
can’t you trust me with your sorrow, whatever it 
may be? Come, I will kiss away your tears and 
you will tell me all, will you not? Better now?” 
he asked. "Shall I leave you or stay?” 

"Stay,” she said, "I want to talk to you. Now, 
Max, is the time I want to be freed from you legal- 
ly, as quietly as possible, but at once.” 

His heart sank within him and it was with an 
effort he raised himself on his elbow to look at 


7 ^ 


Leave Me My Honor. 

her. '‘You shall have what you want/’ he said, 
and then saw the pallor of death settle over her 
features as she fainted again. 

He was frightened, but she soon came to again 
and seeing his look of alarm patted him on the 
cheek gently. “Did you think I was dead, too, 
like poor Ralph?” she asked. 

Next morning Leah was in the breakfast room 
before him. “How is Mabel ?” she inquired with 
warm interest. “The maid tells me that you had 
to send for Dr. Bob last night.” 

“She is asleep now,” Max answered gravely. “I 
was alarmed and sent for the doctor. He says 
she’s hysterical.” 

“No wonder she is, with the trouble she has had 
with me in the last few days. Oh, Max, have you 
noticed how dreadfully pale she gets sometimes, 
<0nd how thin she is? Why, she doesn’t weigh 
more than a baby ! What can be the matter with 
her? I asked Dr. Bob if he could tell me what 
ailed her. He laughed and said she was desper- 
ately in love. ‘With whom?’ I asked. ‘Can you 
tell me that?’ ‘Certainly I can tell you,’ he an- 
swered, ‘she is in love with her husband.’ And 
that is my opinion, too. Max.” 

“She is not. How could she be ? She wants a 
divorce from me.” 

“Max Stanhope! What are you saying? A di- 
vorce from you ! You must be crazy.” 

“I am as sane as you are.” 

“But on what grounds? What does she accuse 
you of?” 

“Oh, incompatibility of temper or something ; I 
do swear sometimes, you know.” 


72 Leave Me My Honor, 

"'But never at her, you love her too dearly.” 

^'Yes, I do love her, and it breaks my heart to 
do this thing, but I promised and I will keep my 
word.” 

''Oh, foolish, foolish Mabel, what is she think- 
ing of? She couldn’t be jealous, could she? She 
is not jealous of me, that’s sure. I am her most 
intimate friend, you know, as she is mine. I tell 
her everything and she tells me ” 

"What she pleases,” Max finished for her. 

Leah was silent. 

"If you have time after breakfast,” she pro- 
posed presently, "I want you to read the letter the 
lawyer gave me, Ralph’s letter,” and here she 
broke down and wept, "his message from the 
grave.” 

"Come to the library,” Max requested, "and 
don’t weep, I can’t bear it. Ralph died happy, let 
that comfort you.” 

"It does comfort me. Max, though I reproached 
myself bitterly at first. I often hear the glad 
tones of his voice as he repeated, 'It says thump, 
thump, I’m beating for Ralph.’ It was my heart 
he referred to, beating against his own as he lay 
in my arms, and it consoles me that I gave him 
that assurance of my love for him before he died. 
And now read the letter and tell me what you 
think of it.” 

Max seated himself and took the letter, and as 
he read it line for line, the kind face of his friend 
came so vividly before him, and he felt his loss so 
keenly, that he bowed his head and wept as only a 
strong man can weep. Leah wept, too, and knelt 
down by him, and thus Mabel saw them as she 


Leave Me My Honor^ 73 

stood in the doorway for a moment, whereupon 
she withdrew as silently as she had come. 

^*He wants me to marry Dr. Russell,” Leah 
complained, when she could control her voice; 
, “that is the purport of the letter, but my heart is 
in the grave with Ralph. I do not love the doc- 
tor. The impossibility of making an impression 
on his sternly virtuous heart had a certain fasci- 
nation for me, and I longed to have him at my feet. 
Ralph and he must have had a long conversa- 
tion about me and arranged this matter between 
them that night when I had returned from the 
Continental. They were together until near mid- 
night, and next morning, when you saw me com- 
ing from his office, the doctor spoke kindly to me 
and told me not to worry about anything. He 
knew then, I am sure, that Ralph’s days were 
numbered.” 

“Perhaps he did ; but if I were you, I would not 
bother about anything until he speaks to you. He 
must have promised to do so, or Ralph would not 
have made the positive assertion that he would. 
You are safe to do right if you trust the guide 
that has been appointed for you. He is a young 
man, much younger than you, and there would be 
my objection to his marrying you, but he is wise 
and upright and honorable. As to Dr. Traynell, 
I don’t think you need fear anything from him, 
but if he opens his lips to you in any but a polite 
way, come to me at once, or, if I should not be 
here, as is likely to be the case, go to Dr. Bob. 
Summon Joe Fourfield only as a last resource. 
Traynell has the entree here, you know, but you 
have my permission to treat him as you please 


74 Leave Me My Honor. 

while you are in my house. I may not be in it 
long myself, alas. It will be hard for me to leave 
it, Leah, this house which I built Mabel fourteen 
years ago ; every brick is dear to me, every stick 
of furniture, every hanging. It was our home, 
Mabel’s and mine, and now we must part. In the 
long ago, out West, Leah, I loved you, but never 
would you have been to me what she is. I cannot 
part from her, I cannot. I gave her my word, 
my word of honor, Leah, that she should be free 
if ever she asked me to let her be; now she has 
asked me, and I am coward enough to feel like 
flinching. She couldn’t get a divorce from me, 
but ah, God, she is miserable with me ! She hugs 
me to her and kisses me and makes believe it is 
the other man! Can you conceive of anything 
more outrageous to a husband’s feelings than 
that?” 

Leah could not help smiling. ^‘Mabel and I 
were always outrageous flirts. Max,” she said: 
“it looks to me as if she were flirting with you. 
Women are queer. I could have sworn that she 
loved you. She never told me so in words, but 
there were a thousand little actions that seemed 
to proclaim it. I have seen her face fairly beam 
when you unexpectedly entered a room where she 
happened to be ; and I have seen the sunlight on 
her countenance die out again as soon as you were 
gone, and she was always so delighted when she 
could be of use in your political work. And who 
is the other man? I am disappointed in her, my 
dear old friend.” 

“Do not withdraw your friendship from her, I 
beg of you, Leah, no matter what happens, who- 


Leave Me My Honor, 75 

ever the man may be; be ever her staunch true 
friend, she needs you.” 

“I will be true to her, Max, do not fear.” 

Mabel seemed very white and frail this morning 
as she hurried forward as Max left the library. 
“I went to your room, dear,” she said, “the mo- 
ment I awakened, but you had already gone and 
when I came down you were busy with Max. Oh, 
Leah, how like a tall lily you look to-day.” 

“And you are a poor little wilted white hya- 
cinth. You are sick and miserable, even more 
miserable than I am. What hurts you, my little 
darling? Come, tell me what it is. Haven’t I 
loved you as a dear friend and sister ever since 
the day Max brought you to us and proudly 
presented his wife? We fell in love with you im- 
mediately, Ralph and I ; we were all young then, 
and you were very lovely and lively and bright. 
How we laughed at the lordly airs of Maximilian 
and his tender care of you ! He could not hide his 
love ; and to-day, Mabel, I am a widow, and Max 
goes to see about getting a divorce from you. It 
is sad, sad.” 

“Yes, Leah, it is sad, I feel it so, I assure you, 
but it cannot be helped. I received a note in the 
morning mail from Dr. Traynell. He asks for a 
private interview with you as soon as you feel 
able to grant it.” 

“Dr. Traynell, what does he want with me?” 

“He does not say.” 

“Have you any idea ?” 

“I have not, Leah. I asked him to tell me some 
weeks ago, when he intimated a desire for an in- 


76 Leave Me My Honor, 

terview with you/’ and she handed Leah Dr. 
Traynell’s note just as Dr. Bob came in. 

“You are downstairs to-day, Mrs. Stanhope?” 
he asked. “You are not fit to be about at all. 
You will have a bad spell of sickness if you are 
not very careful. Was your husband at home last 
night?” 

“He was,” she replied. 

The doctor looked critically at her and shook 
his head. “How do you feel this morning ?” he 
inquired of Leah. 

“I am feeling as well as usual,” she answered. 
“I always had robust health, you know. But 
may I speak with you ?” 

She told him of the note Mabel had received 
from Dr. Traynell that morning. 

The doctor meditated over it a long time. 

“What do you think he wants with you?” he 
queried at last. “He may wish to make you an 
oflfer of his heart and hand now that you are a 
widow.” 

“That may enter into his calculations at the 
present time, but it could not have been in his 
mind when he first spoke to Mabel regarding an 
interview with me,” Leah replied thoughtfully. 
“Did Ralph ever mention my father’s name to you, 
doctor ?” 

“Once, Mrs. Wentworth, he told me that there 
was always a terror hanging over you, of some 
act of your father’s being made public; but he 
gave me no further particulars.” 

“I will tell you my story, then,” Leah decided, 
seating herself. “I was born in Ohio, and, my 
mother having died at my birth, I lived with her 


Leave Me My Honor, 77 

only sister until I was ten years old. Then she 
too died. My father, Colonel Emmet, placed me 
in a school and there I stayed until I was past 
sixteen. My education finished, my father in- 
formed me that he had been unfortunate, 
had lost a great deal of money, and 
that he could give me but poor accom- 
modation with him. I might stay on and be 
trained for a teacher if I liked, he could spare 
that much, but I chose to go with him. He was 
so handsome and stately, upright and honorable, 
and had won distinction in the war. His hair 
was abundant and white as the driven snow. 

“From place to place I went with him through 
the West until we got beyond the Rockies. I don’t 
know what took up his time during the day, but 
at night he invariably brought home male friends 
with whom he played cards. Sometimes I took 
a hand at Old Sledge or euchre, the only games I 
ever learned to play. I did not care for cards, 
and often wished my father were not so fond of 
them. 

“Now to our lodgings in the far West, came 
regularly for about six weeks. Mason Worrell, the 
man of whom the papers have lately praised so 
loudly the talents and honorable career. Max 
Stanhope, Ralph Wentworth and Joe Fourfield, 
who is now Governor of Ohio. 

“Every one of these four men fell in love with 
me, but none of them showed it except Mason 
Worrell, and for him I felt nothing but con- 
tempt, first because I thought he was ruining my 
father, and then, because he always looked at me 


78 Leave Me My Honor, 

like a wolf watching for an opportunity to devour 
a lamb. 

**He knew my father and I were all alone in 
the world, that we had not a single relative, and 
that soon my father would be penniless, and he 
laid his plans accordingly. He knew also what 
attracted the other three men to our lodgings, 
but he did not take them into account, at which I 
have often wondered 

^'One never-to-be-forgotten, awful night, they 
were all sitting around the rickety table, playing 
as usual, and I was leaning over my father's 
shoulder, wishing he would stop soon and take me 
for a walk. The sun beat down pitilessly 
throughout the day on the ridges and falls of that 
hilly section, but at night the air was cool and 
very refreshing, and I loved to hang on his arm 
and wander out with him along the trails, below 
the falls, or through the canyon and listen to the 
exciting recitals of his experiences during the 
war. 

*T think he would have stopped and come with 
me, for he had lost everything and had nothing 
more to put up, but Worrell called out: ‘Stake 
Leah.' I am sorry to say it, but I believe my fa- 
ther would have done so, he was so infatuated 
with gambling, had not the others objected. 

‘‘ ‘No ; you must not stake Leah,' Ralph ex- 
claimed, and a shower of abuse fell upon the 
despicable proposer of such a transaction. ‘Well, 
then, stake the ring on her finger,' he went on, 
unheeding. It was a ring he himself had given 
me one day because I admired the big ruby in it. 
It looked out of place on his hand, which was ill- 


79 


Leave Me My Honor, 

shaped and horny, and as I jestingly told him so, 
he pleaded that I should let him place it on mine 
and see how it looked there. I was amused at his 
beseeching appeal and consented to the transfer. 

“I did not value it as highly as he expected me 
to, however, and when he called for it as a stake 
I pulled it off at once and threw it on the table. 
They played for it and my father won. ‘You 
cheated that time. Colonel Emmet,’ yelled Wor- 
rell ; and without another word of warning, he 
shot him like a dog. 

“Max Stanhope was down on the murderer 
with one bound, while the other two attended to 
my poor father, gasping, as he did, in the agony of 
death, an indignant denial of the disgraceful 
charge. 

“The cards he still held in his hand were laid 
on the table and examined; when lo, they were 
found to bear irrefutable testimony of foul play, 
and Mason Worrell was allowed to go free; for 
out there, in those days, they made their own 
laws, and according to one of these a man caught 
cheating at cards could be shot dead for it. 

“And so my white-haired old father lay there 
dead and dishonored ; and I was alone without a 
friend or protector. Then up stepped Joe Four- 
field and said solemnly, ‘Leah, I love you; and 
here and now I lay my heart and fortune at your 
feet.’ ‘So do I,’ ‘So do I,’ Max and Ralph spoke 
in succession. 

“ ‘She is mine,’ Mason Worrell shouted ; and he 
would have caught me in his arms, had I not 
rushed up to Ralph Wentworth and proclaimed 
that I was his. 


8o Leave Me My Honor. 

“They bought a grave for my father and fenced 
it in, but no stone marks the spot where rests 
Colonel Emmet; I judged it best that it should 
be so. 

“I married Ralph at once and he made a home 
for me here, and for eighteen years we were 
never troubled by the murderer of my father; 
but on the day you were called in to me, I was 
suddenly summoned to his bedside. He was at 
the Continental, and I went there with Ralph and 
Mabel. He would see none but me, however; 
and when I was alone with him he confessed to 
me that it was by a sleight of hand he made it 
appear to the others that my father cheated, and 
he begged of me to say that I forgave him as I 
hoped to be forgiven. I asked him if he would 
acknowledge his guilt before my husband and he 
said he would not, that he had made his name to 
rank with the highest and it must not be dis- 
honored. He told me that, and I took a cane 
that was standing by the bed and beat him across 
the face with it with all my might. That’s how I 
forgave him! And can you blame me. Dr. Rus- 
sell?” 

The doctor was a prey to too violent emotions 
to give an immediate and categorical answer to 
Leah’s query, and she was too excited to pause 
for a reply. 

“Dr. Traynell was Worrell’s physician at the 
Continental,” she went on almost immediately, 
“and although the wretch never spoke again dur- 
ing the two days he still lingered after my visit, 
I fear he may have found some other means 
of imparting his own version of the story of that 


Leave Me My Honor. 8i 

w 

terrible night to his doctor. Now, what sliall 1 
do? Grant Traynell the interview, or refuse to 
see him?” 

“Grant him the interview so that we may know 
what it is he wishes to say to you. It may be 
for what I suggested first.” 

‘‘Surely he would show a little respect and con- 
sideration for my feelings and not ask me to 
marry him so soon after Ralph's death.” 

“Dr. Traynell is not a stickler for propriety. 
In any case do receive him as soon as possible, 
Mrs. Wentworth, and then report to me what he 
says.” 


82 


Leave Me My Honor, 


X. 

Later in the day, Leah went to visit Ralph’s 
grave. Mabel was asleep when she returned, 
so she joined Max in the library. 

He had come in an hour before and had gone U" 
the library. He was staring vacantly at some pa* 
pers he held in his hand, and was utterly uncon* 
scious of Leah’s approach until she stood before 
him. 

''Here is some medicine Dr. Bob left for Ma- 
bel,” she said, placing a small vial before him, 
"and he wants you to give her exactly twenty 
drops every four hours, beginning with eight 
o’clock. 'Be careful,’ he said, 'in measuring it 
out, it is a poison with this singularity: a few 
drops more or less than twenty might mean death 
to her.’ ” 

"That means that I must stay up all night,” 
Max answered positively. "I am such a sleepy 
head I could never wake up at the right time, and 
if I did, I would, as likely as not, give her the 
whole bottle full in one dose.” 

"I am wakeful. Max, and could rap on your 
door every four hours. I could go in and give it 
to her, for that matter ; but, for some reason, the 
doctor insists on your giving it to her yourself.” 

"I will give it to her. I won’t have her with 


Leave Me My Honor, 83 

me very long, you know, and am willing to do 
her greater service. I have found out, Leah, 
that by employing certain counsel, and not spar- 
ing the dollars, she can procure a divorce from me 
in a very few months. She will make application 
as soon as she is able to go out, and I will be 
alone; aye, worse than alone. If she were dead 
I think I could bear it, but to know her another’s 
— ah, well, when she is gone, all will be gone. I 
will have nothing to live for, and I’ll just make a 
beast of myself and drink myself to death, that’s 
what I’ll do. I’m a failure all round with you 
women. You refused me; she cannot love me 
after having been my wife for fourteen years.” 

Mabel came in smiling languidly and took a 
seat near Leah. ‘‘I am feeling better,” she said, 
“after my long sleep. What is that you have in 
your hand. Max, marked with a skull and cross 
bones?” 

“Some medicine for you, ma’am! I’m to give 
you twenty drops of poison every four hours 
to-night. It is not meant to kill you, ma’am, but 
if I should happen to give you a few drops more 
or a few drops less of this mixture, made up from 
one of Russell’s special prescriptions, to-morrow 
you’d be as dead as a door nail. The doctor left 
orders that nobody’s to give it to you but me, 
ma’am.” 

“But you can’t wake up every four hours. 
Max.” 

“Them’s the orders and I obeys 'as best I kin.’ 
There goes the dinner bell, and we must eat if the 
heavens fall.” 

He got up, put his hands under his coat tails 


84 Leave Me My Ho 7 ior. 

and strutted up and down, English flunkey style, 
to make Leah smile. 

Mabel seated herself at the writing desk and 
scribbled off a few notes. “By the way, Leah,“ 
she remarked presently, “what shall I say to Dr. 
Traynell ?” 

“Tell him to come here to-morrow at eleven 
o’clock, and that I will grant him an interview.” 

The bell rang again and they obeyed the sum- 
mons. 

As the two women rose from the table together. 
Max observed: “I’ll not be long over my wine 
and walnuts, and will be with you directly in the 
snuggery.” 

The snuggery was a room on the second floor, 
half parlor, half sitting room, in which were to 
be found easy chairs and lounges, pictures, 
bric-a-brac and books, and three or four musical 
instruments. Here Mabel and Max had spent 
many hours together and here only their most in- 
timate friends were allowed to join them. 

Painfully strange indeed was the conversation 
held within its walls on this evening. So unreal 
was the tone of levity which Max Stanhope would 
fain infuse into it; so obviously strained were 
the efforts he put forward in that direction. He 
had gone the length of turning into a comic reci- 
tation for the benefit of his two companions, the 
latest club story he had heard — the tragic end of 
a well known whiskey fiend ; but as he concluded 
it, the cruel irony of the parody he was acting 
stung him so deeply, that, suddenly changing his 
tone, he slowly said: “That will be the end of 


Leave Me My Honor. 85 

Max Stanhope before another year comes round/’ 

‘'Oh, never!” exclaimed Leah. “You surely 
will never disgrace yourself to that extent.” 

“It shall be so,” he repeated. “I have made up 
my mind to drink myself to death when the wom- 
an whom I love turns from me.” He looked 
straight at Mabel as he said this. 

“Give me the poison,” was her only response. 
“It is striking eight.” 

“I left it in the library,” Max said. “I will go 
for it.” 

And in a moment he was back. “Here are 
your twenty drops of poison measured out care- 
fully,” he remarked, as he handed a medicine 
glass to his wife. “Drink it down, and if you 
feel sleepy after it, go to your room. I have some 
letters to write and I want to smoke, after which 
I will return to you. Leah looks worn out. She 
should retire early, too.” 

Mabel took the medicine from his hand and 
drank it down. 

Max took back the glass and putting both’ 
glass and vial into his pocket, walked off to his 
den. 

“Yes, I think I will go to my room, Mabel,” 
said Leah. “That long ride and the conversation 
I had have tired me out. Besides, I must 
get all the rest I can before I see Dr. Traynell. 
I have a presentiment that he will bring me noth- 
ing but trouble.” 

“I hope not,” Mabel answered with a listless- 
ness which Leah attributed to the soporific 
draught her friend had just taken. 


86 Leave Me My Honor. 

'‘Good mgHt, dear, I will do a little writing in 
my room and then retire myself. Good night,” 
she repeated with an affectionate kiss. “You 
were always dear to me, Leah, remember that.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 


87 


XL 

Max in his den was for a long time busy with 
some writing over which he deeply pondered and 
thought and worried. 

Two cigars were consumed during the 
operation, and when he had folded the sheets 
and placed them in safety, he filled a 
bowl from a pouch of tobacco, and, leaning back 
in his chair puflfed at his pipe meditatively.^ 
Presently he relapsed by rapid mental stages 
into that one-idea state which is but little re- 
moved from insanity. He must know who was 
Mabel’s lover, the man who would rob him of his 
wife and make him so utterably miserable. There 
was her writing desk facing him, very near his 
own — she often sat here and wrote while he 
smoked. He would look at her cards, her let- 
ters, her diary. But the diary was gone from its 
accustomed place in an inner compartment, and 
the dainty little squares in the card drawer were 
no other than her own exquisitely simple and 
elegant visiting cards. Only the letters remained. 

Now and again, as he looked through them, 
he chanced upon a name or a suggestion that 
tempted him to further investigation, but in the 
end, when he had read every letter and later ex- 
amined every loose scrap of paper the desk con- 
tained, even turned the pages of the carefully 


88 Leave Me My Honor, 

kept housekeeping journal, he found himself still 
in ignorance of the identity of the whereabouts 
of the man whom he would gladly slay to keep 
him from Mabel. 

Evidently she was afraid he would kill him, 
that’s why she kept him out of the way, and so 
carefully concealed his identity. 

And ho, Max, had pledged his word to her, 
but when it came to the test — his gaze left the 
pipe and wandered first up and down the quiet 
room, then, from the side window, far into the 
green and sheltered depths of the larger con- 
servatory. He was thinking — or was it dreaming ? 
picturing his early life with Mabel in this home 
he had entered with her in joyous content. Their 
life together in fourteen years had been vivid in 
interest, intense in aim; he had thought it real 
happiness; but the future that confronted him 
like a dense mist, in which all things were vague, 
must be lived without her, if he kept his promise. 

He would not keep it. The law was on his 
side. He would deal with her so tenderly, be so 
sunny and genial, that the icy barrier between 
them would melt away until only a thin veil of 
coldness remained, which, by his tact, would be 
finally lifted. A new spirit would hover o’er the 
scene. She would be conscious only that some- 
thing had come and gone between them which 
it were better to forget. She would let him see 
again that he was much to her, and perhaps, 
perhaps would learn to love him as Leah had 
learned to love Ralph after eighteen years. Would 
she? No, steadfast Mabel was not volatile Leah. 

Mabel loved another man — if he could only 


Leave Me My Honor, 89 

place him, the scoundrel, she wouldn’t love him 
long: he would challenge him, though duelling 
was out of date, fight him, kill him ; he knew he 
would if he ever confronted him, and she would 
continue to love him to the end. How miserable 
she was now, tearful and sick and so quiet He 
missed her lively impetuous ways, the sudden 
flashes of anger in her cheeks and eyes, the im- 
patient stamp of the little foot and the fretful 
shake of the head with which she had always 
managed him. 

And how rapidly she was losing flesh. She 
was only a feather weight compared to the well- 
rounded, plump little darling she had been up 
to within a few weeks ago. Only since Ralph’s 
illness had he observed it. He could give her to 
Death; but oh, he could not see her miserable. 
Everything was beclouded. Everything pointed 
to misery. He lost his self-command, bowed his 
head and gave way to despair. 

He must do violence to every prejudice, strangle 
his passion for Mabel, let her take the best life 
was likely to offer her with another, and fulfill 
his promise. Aye, he would fulfill it. He would 
step down and out as he had said he would. 

At ten o’clock he went to Mabel’s room, and, 
finding her still asleep, returned to the den for 
another hour of self-torture and useless repining. 
Toward the end of it he was calmer, and selected 
some books and papers to take upstairs with him. 
Seating himself in a low chair, he read for about 
twenty minutes, then gave himself up again to 
vain imagining, — the bottle with Mabel’s medi- 
cine and the glass he had set on the bureau. 


90 Leave Me My Honor. 

Mabel still slept soundly, her sweet face out- 
lined by the pillows, two long thick plaits of her 
golden hair hanging over the edge of the bed, 
her hands and lace-covered arms lying on the 
coverlid. 

He moved his chair close to the bed, stooped 
over and kissed her, and then, after once more 
consulting his watch, which indicated 11.30, he 
leaned back in his chair, and, before he knew it, 
was paying forfeit to overtaxed nature. 

Unconsciously he swayed to and fro with a 
sense of steering himself through a vast sea of 
trouble to a difficult haven, which he reached at 
last — and settled himself for good — and was 
lulled to rest by the silence. 

The clock struck twelve. 

Mabel heard it. She raised herself on her el- 
bow and viewed her sleeping husband; he was 
sighing and moaning, and presently she distinctly 
heard him murmur: ‘'Ah, Ralph, Ralph, to die 
Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms.” 

She slipped out of bed quietly and moved over 
to the bureau ; here she poured the contents of the 
vial into the medicine glass — when the door 
opened and Leah entered. ‘‘You are up, I see,” 
she said, “and Max is asleep. I heard the clock 
strike and listened for some movement in here, 
but none came, so I came to the door and finding 
it open walked in ; but — great God, Mabel, you 
have made a mistake ; the vial is empty !” and 
she snatched the glass from Mabel’s hand. “Oh, 
how fortunate it is I came in! Max, Max, wake 
up and measure the medicine. Oh, Lord, oh. 
Lord, I am unnerved.” 


91 


Leave Me My Honor. 

Max opened his eyes. 

heard the clock strike/' Leah said to him 
excitedly, with a strange, terrified look, ''and 
came in, and here stood Mabel with this glass in 
her hand and the bottle empty. Pour it out, 
Max, and measure her out twenty drops. I 
couldn’t do it if you killed me.” 

Max took the glass from her trembling hand, 
poured its contents back in the bottle, and counted 
out the twenty drops. 

"Hold the glass yourself. Max, while she takes 
it,” said Leah, who had sunk in a heap on the 
floor. "Twenty drops, more or less than twenty 
would kill her. Oh, God in Heaven, if she had 
been found dead to-morrow, I might have been 
called upon to swear away your life.” 

Max held the glass to Mabel’s lips and saw that 
she drank every drop. "I am ashamed of my- 
self,” he said contritely. "I read until 11.20, and 
was wide awake when the half hour struck. How 
I came to drop off so quickly I can't imagine. 
Thank you, Leah, for coming in, I will not go to 
sleep between this and four, I promise you ; so go 
back to bed.” 

Leah gazed at him breathlessly; she was still 
shaking. "Put Mabel to bed,” she gasped, "and 
cover her up, she looks white and frozen. Oh, 
Lord, oh. Lord, if I hadn’t come in when I did, 
she would have killed herself and you would have 
been hung for it !” 

Max picked Mabel up and laid her back on her 
pillows, and as he tucked the covers about her, 
he whispered soothingly, "Sleep now, and don’t 
be unhappy. It will soon be over, you will soon 


92 Leave Me My Honor, 

be free. I am only waiting for you to get well 
to leave you.’' 

Mabel closed her eyes, and her husband turned 
his attention to Leah. 

shall take the bottle with me,” she said in a 
tremor ; ‘‘and when four o’clock comes, I’ll be here 
again to see you measure out the next dose.” 

And with Max’s aid she staggered toward the 
door, holding tightly in her hand the bottle she 
had taken from the bureau. 

When they were in the hall, she whispered to 
him : “Lie down beside her, Max, and take her in 
your arms and keep her there for the rest of the 
night. Kiss her and pet her. Let her think you 
the Prince of Wales, the King of Denmark, or the 
Devil ; but kiss her and pet her this night. She 
would have killed herself a while ago.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 


93 


XIL 

Max accordingly went back ; but back, too, went 
his thoughts to the same old circuit. '‘Soon I 
must leave her,” he communed with himself. “She 
will no longer be mine but another’s. Is he hand- 
some and manly ? What particular fascination had 
he to draw Mabel ? What actual charm or palpa- 
ble virtue? Would it be pleasant for him to live 
with Mabel? Would he admire her love of life 
and of the world, her sentimental attitude toward 
young men — her pet subjects, her fastidious ap- 
preciation of a husband’s prerogatives — depending 
in uncertainty upon her whims ? Ah, with all her 
faults my heart yearns for her. There will be 
no ray of sunshine on my lonely track when she 
is gone from me. 

“If she had taken that medicine, she would have 
died. I could have borne that better, and if I had 
been hung for it, as Leah suggested, what mat- 
ter? I will have nothing to live for when she is 
gone, nothing. 

“Why must this dreadful sorrow fall on me? 
Oh, how I suffer !” He began to stroke the little 
hands on the coverlids. “When I cease to suffer, 
I shall be lying near Ralph in Mount Moriah. 
Oh, dear God, I have led a clean life, done all 
the good I could in the world, served you with my 
whole heart. I cannot give her up to another. 


94 Leave Me My Honor, 

Turn her heart to me even in the eleventh hour, 
Almighty Father, or let her die” 

“I love you, I love you, ah, how I love you! 
Death, death, without you I” Mabel articulated. 

Max started and looked at her. 

She was still asleep. 

“Dreaming of the other,’" he muttered, gritting 
his teeth. “Who can he be, and why does she not 
speak to Leah about him ? Poor Leah, how fright- 
ened she was to-night. It was stupid of me to go 
to sleep when I had only a few more minutes to 
wait. 'Kiss her and pet her,’ she said, 'this night,’ 
and so I will. You are mine, Mabel, to-night, in 
my arms, and I love you, I love you.” 

Leah came in and after the third dose of the 
dreaded medicine had been administered, she per- 
suaded Max to retire to his own room while she 
would spend the remainder of the night by the 
side of his wife. 

To her surprise, when she went down to the 
breakfast room in the early morning she found 
he had preceded her. 

“I must go out early,” he said in answer to her 
look of inquiry. “I have business on hand that 
needs looking after. Is Mabel still sleeping?” 

“Still sleeping heavily,” she replied. “The 
medicine is doing it, I suppose; but. Max, sup- 
pose she had taken what was in that glass I” 

At eight Max gave Mabel her last dose of 
medicine, and Leah immediately seized the empty 
vial and smuggled it away in her pocket. 

Mabel looked up hastily. “Why did you do 
that?” she asked, coldly, almost haughtily. 

Leah watched the proud face closely and 


Leave Me My Honor, 95 

thought she saw its expression waver as she held 
her look ; nay, the beautiful pale countenance did 
change visibly when she answered : “Because you 
were crazy last night and would have killed your- 
self by taking an over dose. There is a label on 
the bottle. Dr. Bob did not put it up himself, and 
for fear that you might want to get it duplicated, 
in order to commit suicide, I take possession of 
it.’’ 

Instead of replying, Mabel gathered uo her/ 
mail. 

“Do you think you will be well enough this 
afternoon to see Mr. Severne, the lawyer?” Max 
inquired in a suppressed tone. 

She raised her head and looked searchingly 
into her husband’s eyes. “To-morrow afternoon 
I will see him,” she said. 

Max departed and Mabel went on with her 
letters. 

Leah propped herself on a couch full of cush- 
ions and took up a book, but presently, with a lit- 
tle thud, the book slid to the floor, and Mabel, at- 
tracted by the sound, noticed her friend slept. 

She laid her pen down and sat and thought, then 
half started up, but returned to her correspond- 
ence — resumed her pen and answered many of 
the kind inquiries regarding her health and the 
sympathetic allusions to Leah’s bereavement, 
wrote a few pages in her diary, but finally leaned 
back again in her chair and once more sat gazing 
at Leah. 

Nor was it long ere the cause of her mysterious 
watching became apparent. A movement of the 
beautiful sleeper on the couch disarranged her 


96 Leave Me My Honor, 

garment and exposed the crepe-trimmed pocket 
of her morning gown. 

In an instant, noiselessly, breathlessly, Mabel 
had glided across the room, slipped her hand in 
the gaping pocket and drawn out the bottle ; but 
Leah’s hand clutched her and took it away from 
her again. “What did you mean to do?” she cried. 
“Mabel, Mabel, are you so desperate as all that ! 
I shall destroy every vestige of it now,” and so 
saying she took up a heavy paper weight, smashed 
the bottle to powder and threw it into the fire, 
after which she knelt down by Mabel who had 
seated herself again, buried her head in her lap 
and wept as though her heart would break. 
“Oh, I wish Dr. Bob or Max were here,” she 
sobbed, “if they were only here! I am afraid of 
you, Mabel.” 

Mabel said nothing but stroked Leah’s hair 
softly until she had calmed herself, and she led 
her back to the couch, pushed her down on the 
cushions, and seated herself on the edge, directly 
in front of her. 

And there she stayed until the bell rang and 
Dr. Bob was ushered in. 

“I came as soon as I could,” he said when he 
had greeted the ladies. “You are better, Mrs. 
Stanhope, much better. The medicine has done 
you good. Have you the bottle handy? I want 
to take it with me. It is not safe to leave those 
things about where there are servants. You have 
taken it all, haven’t you?” 

“Every drop of it,” Mabel answered, “and Leah 
has ground the bottle to powder and burned it. 


Leave Me My Honor. 97 

She thought as you did, it wasn’t safe to leave it 
about.” 

The doctor turned to Leah. '‘You are looking 
very haggard this morning, Mrs. Wentworth,” 
he said, taking her hand. “You are full of fear, 
actually trembling. You will be on my hands 
next if you are not careful. Sit up and rouse 
yourself, Traynell will soon be here, I presume. 
It is about half-past ten; don’t show the white 
feather before him.” 

Leah tried to raise herself, but found it utterly 
impossible to do so. “I am all unnerved, doctor,” 
she breathed, “give me something to brace me 
up.” 

“Make the interview as short as possible,” he 
ordered, “and go to bed as soon as it is over. You 
have not slept all night and your nerves are fear- 
fully out of gear. Do not weep so helplessly, 
there is nothing to fear, I am here with you.” 

“Yes, I know,” she whispered, “bend nearer so 
that I can speak in your ear.” 

Mabel, at this time, out of earshot and unaware 
of the by-play, was on her way to a little alcove 
at the far end of the room, intent on getting her 
notes to the post tray. 

He bent above her and Leah entreated, “Watch 
Mabel, oh, watch her, watch her, she would have 
killed herself last night if I hadn’t prevented it. 
Do not leave her any more dangerous medicine !” 

“Was her husband with her last night?” the 
doctor whispered. 

“Yes, till four o’clock this morning,” she an- 
swered, as the bell rang again. 

Mabel took Leah’s arm and went with her to 


98 Leave Me My Honor. 

the reception room into which Dr. Traynell had 
been shown. 

She stayed long enough to exchange a few 
pleasantries with him, then, at a sign from Leah, 
she withdrew. 

Dr. Traynell’s eyelids had a pronounced droop 
and the corners of his eyes were drawn together 
sharply as he took in every detail of the tail 
blactrobed figure that came forward so slowly 
and sank listlessly down in a rocker ; — ^but the face 
with its strained eyes, brows furrowed and lips 
tightly compressed, gave no indication of weak- 
ness. 

Peering intently into her eyes, with head thrust 
forward, as though life had but one thing in store 
for him, — and that he could not find, — he, too, 
for a moment set his teeth together and knitted 
his brows, but for a moment only ; the next, his 
face was lit up by a smile, as her eyes grew moist. 

'‘Leah, Leah, how beautiful you are in your 
weeds he exclaimed. "Fair as a lily, but just 
a trifle too pale, and your eyes are glistening with 
tears, they look as if you had shed many of them. 
I am sorry to see it, for I love you, Leah, but 
that's no news to you. I never could hide it, and 
it was for showing it too plainly that Ralph dis- 
charged me and forbade me the house." 

"It was not for that," Leah retorted angrily, 
"it was for watching me as a cat does a mouse, 
and for saying you wouldn't hesitate to put him 
out of the road if you thought you had any chance 
with me. He told me so himself and gave me the 
names of the men who heard you say it.” 

"He did, eh? Well, he put himself to a whole 


99 


Leave Me My Honor. 

lot of trouble for nothing.” The doctor s nostrils 
dilated and his eyes glared, however, as he made 
the assertion. 

‘TVe got you where I want you, my beautiful 
tigress,” he continued, “and you’ll give me what 
I’ve come here to ask for, or I’m out in my cal- 
culation.” 

He closed the sliding doors and pulled the 
portieres together, then rolled a chair in front of 
Leah and sat down. 

“You don’t seem to be as perky as usual,” he 
sneered, “not as cock-a-hoop as you were the last 
time I saw you, when you ordered me out of 
Mason Worrell’s room. I left the room, I did; 
^but I forgot to let the door catch, and when you 
.were busy, I had it on a crack and heard through 
the curtain every word you uttered. What do 
you say to that, now?” 

Leah did not answer. She had fainted. 

The doctor saw it in an instant, and quickly 
put his hand in his pocket for a restorative he al- 
ways carried about with him; but on second 
thought withdrew his hand again, empty, and 
knelt down so that he could embrace Leah. “At 
last I have a chance at your lovely hands and 
arms, your bosom, your neck, and your lips, my 
beautiful, beautiful Leah,” he exulted. “How I 
love you ! No wonder Ralph had heart disease. 
You are enough to give it to any man. One more 
taste of her lips and then she’ll come to — she’ll 
come to, and murder me if there’s anything in 
reach to do it with. Fortunately there is not and 
here goes my last.” 


LofC. 


loo Leave Me My Honor. 

He laid his burning lips to hers and drew her 
back to life with them. 

Leah opened her eyes and saw his hated face 
above her and felt his lips on her mouth. She 
would have screamed but the doctor put his hand 
over her mouth. ‘‘Don’t make a noise,” he cau- 
tioned, “or you will be sorry. You’re in my 
power. I know that your father cheated at cards 
and was killed for it, and now I want you to marry 
me to keep my mouth shut or make me speak, for 
I also know that your father did not cheat, that 
Mason Worrell made it appear so to the others 
by a sleight-of-hand trick. I could clear your 
father’s memory or blacken it still further : 
choose which it shall be.” 

Leah could not speak but looked at him with 
imploring eyes, helplessly. 

The doctor took her wrist in his hand. “Sit 
up,” he said, “and smell this.” 

He held something to her nose that made 
her sneeze, and she sat up straight. 

“Will you marry me?” Dr. Traynell demanded 
with a cynical smile. 

“Give me a little time to think of it,” Leah said 
at last. “I must have time to think.” 

“How much time ?” 

‘Five or six months — six months.” 

“Six months? Well — er, I see no objection to 
that. I will give you six months. If at the end 
of that time you promise to marry me, I will clear 
your father’s name by publishing to the world 
what Mason Worrell confessed on his death bed ; 
if not. I’ll publish the other thing. You may do 
as you please, but I hope that you’ll marry me. 


lOI 


Leave Me My Honor. 

IVe had you in my arms to-day and kissed your 
hands, arms, neck and lips, and I long for more 
of you. You are sweet, Leah, and I will be a 
slave to you when once I am your husband. I 
know it. I am a strong man, but you are the 
woman to bend me, if you will. Think of me 
kindly, Leah, I love you.’' 

^‘Miscreant,” exclaimed Leah, fiercely, with her 
face on fire, ^‘don’t dare to come near me again 
until the six months are up !” 

“I won’t,” he rejoined, “you might cane me,” 
and left. 

Leah dragged herself back to the library. 
“Have you anv more poison about you?” she in- 
quired of Dr. Bob. “I want some.” 

“What for?” he asked, laying his hand on her 
shoulder and looking deeply into her eyes. 

“I want to kill myself ! Oh, don’t look at me. 
I’m not fit to be looked at !” 

“Sit down, Leah,” said Mabel, coming for- 
ward. “Sit down, dear, and tell us what occurred 
between you and Dr. Traynell.” 

The doctor drew her to a couch and sat down 
beside her and kept her hand in his. 

“I fainted,” she said forlornly, “when he told 
me he overheard all that was said that day, at the 
bedside of Mason Worrell, and he, the vampire, 
held me in his arms and kissed my hands and 
arms, my neck and my lips until I revived. I saw 
his face above mine the moment I came to, and 
felt his hateful lips on my mouth, and I want to 
die. I’m so hateful to myself.” 

“He shall answer to me for that,” said Dr. Bob, 
passionately. “The miserable hound, to dare — to 


102 


Leave Me My Honor. 

dare behave thus with an unconscious woman! 
Don’t distress yourself, L — Mrs. Wentworth, you 
can wash it all off; but what else did he say. 
How ended the interview?” 

‘‘He wants me to marry him. Says that he will 
clear my father’s name by letting the world know 
what Mason Worrell confessed on his death bed 
if I do so. If I do not, he will publish the other 
thing,” and here her sobs shook her entire frame. 

“And what did you say in reply, Leah ?” Mabel 
asked when the two friends grew calmer. 

“I told him that I must have time to think of it. 
‘How much time?’ he asked, and I said six months, 
but why I said it I don’t know unless Ralph’s let- 
ter suggested it. That fiend saw no objection to 
that, — and then he told me what he had done to 
me while I was unconscious, and oh, I am so 
ashamed, and so utterly miserable I Ralph, Ralph, 
you would not have left me to meet that fiendish 
wretch alone ! You would have come with me and 
protected me from such pollution ! Let me die, oh, 
let me die and join Ralph !” 

“You shall never meet him alone again,” Dr. 
Bob assured her earnestly, “if I live. As it is, we 
have six months to work in, and we’ll drain the 
venom from his fangs or I’m much mistaken — 
the poisonous reptile! Go to bed now, Leah, — 
Mrs. Wentworth, — and I will call again this even- 
ing to see how you are. And you will keep your 
promise to me in that other matter, Mrs. Stan- 
hope; will you not?” 

“I will keep it,” she answered, “do not fear.” 

Leah wearily threw herself back on the couch, 
a piteous wreck, and Mabel stayed beside her un- 
til the sleep of exhaustion overcame her. 


Leave Me My Honor, 103 


XIII. 

On leaving the Stanhope mansion, Dr. Russell 
made straight toward the Medico-Chirurgical 
Hospital, at Eighteenth and Cherry streets, where 
he knew Dr. Traynell to be due at that hour of 
the day, in the clinic, and met him almost face to 
face at the junction of the two streets. 

“Hullo,’' called Dr. Traynell. “Coming to see 
the new fever patient at the Medico-Chi?” 

“I have come to see you,” Dr. Bob hissed be- 
tween his teeth, “and to punish you for what you 
did to Mrs. Wentworth. Take this, lascivious 
polluter of unconscious women!” giving him a 
blow in the chest that felled him to the pavement, 
and kicking him down again every time he tried to 
rise. 

Traynell managed to get his pistol from his 
pocket, but before he could fire. Dr. Bob kicked 
the weapon out of his hand clear across the street, 
and gave him another dose of his previous pun- 
ishment. “Now, sue me for this,” he said, “if 
you have a mind to, and I will take a hand in the 
publishing business and give to the world Mrs. 
Wentworth’s story of Dr. Traynell’s manly prow- 
ess,” and coolly stepping across the street, he 
picked up the pistol and carried it off with him. 

That noonday happened to be a quiet one in the 
neighborhood of the Medico-Chi, and fortunately 


104 Leave Me My Honor. 

the affair came off without the officious inter- 
ference of bystanders or policemen — or the vitri- 
olic comment of lawyers, later on. 

Dr. Traynell picked himself up, and instead of 
going into the hospital, limped back to his office 
and treated his injuries. Bitter were his thoughts 
during the operation. That Dr. Bob should know 
of this interview with Leah so very soon after it 
had taken place led him to the conclusion that he 
was in the house during its progress, and that 
he should allude so boldly to her story argued 
that he was deep in her confidence. 

But let Dr. Bob beware how he came in his 
way when the six months were over. Leah would 
be Mrs. Traynell, — of that he felt certain, — in 
order to clear her father’s name if for no other 
purpose. She would be in his arms again, if not 
willingly, then the other way. He knew of a drug 
that would bend a woman to do a man’s will and 
he would use it — aye, use it unsparingly, and 
without hesitation. 

Max’s wrath when the news of the untoward 
episode would reach his ears, gave him no little 
anxiety, too, and so he kept himself out of his 
way for a few days. 

But Max took no pains to look for him, satisfied 
as he was that Dr. Russell had punished him, not 
lightly. 

When Mabel returned from the cemetery with 
Leah, Max, alarmed at her feverish appearance, 
induced her to retire to her bedroom for a while, 
and the two prospective divorcees found them- 
selves once more, tete-a-tete in their library. 


Leave Me My Honor. 105 

“I am very anxious about Leah,” Max began, 
“and I wish I had not allowed her to see that fiend 
alone. Dr. Bob met me at the League, and told 
me all about it. He has punished him as he de- 
serves.” 

“How?” 

“By nearly kicking him to death. That poor 
girl upstairs has worried herself sick, I know. 
. . . By the way, Mabel, Mr. Severne is to be 
here to-morrow ; then I am off until the expiration 
of the time required by the conditions of the case 
— until the decree of divorce has been handed 
down.” 

For a moment the silence was broken only by 
the labored breathing of the two actors in this 
prelude to a drama foreshadowed by such gloomy 
omens. 

Max was the first to seek relief from the un- 
bearable situation by rising from his chair and 
pacing up and down the room. 

“Should either of you,” he resumed in a rather 
husky voice, “need a protector while I am gone, 
apply to Dr. Bob. He will not mind neglecting 
his fevers to serve you. I never saw him so 
worked up about anything as he is about Tray- 
neirs daring to kiss Leah ; he fairly shook with 
emotion while speaking of it. He loves her, I 
can see it.” 

“You all love her,” said Mabel, “and so do I. 
Dr. Bob will take good care of her during your 
absence, and I can take care of myself.” 

“Max,” said Mabel, when they were alone to- 
gether in her room, “there is one request I wish to 


io6 Leave Me My Honor, 

make of you. Arrange matters so that this house 
shall be mine after we are separated. I wish to 
reside in it.” 

‘*Oh, Mabel! In this house where you and I 
have lived together for fourteen years ?” 

“Yes, no other will suit me as well.” 

“So be it,” he sighed. “Is there anything else 
I can do for you?” 

“No — yes, there is. I want Selim.” 

“My gallant hunter? But you have Marah.” 

“I want Selim, too.” 

“You shall have him.” 

His thoughts after that were as gall and worm- 
wood. 

She meant to bring him here, to this same house 
to which he had brought her as a bride ! She had 
even begged a horse for him, his horse, his noble 
Selim ! Had she no shame ? And was he a poor 
man, that he couldn’t furnish her with a lodging 
away from this? — Oh, well, it would soon be 
over. After that wrench, he would tear himself 
away also from his friends and associates, and 
from the city he loved. 

He went to sleep after he had made this reso- 
lution, and woke up in the night to find Mabel 
across his breast as if she had thrown herself 
there in perfect abandon ; she was sobbing in her 
sleep. 

His mind still traveled in a circuit from him- 
self to the other man. Would he humor Mabel 
as he had done, or would he dare to ill-treat her? 
Ill-treat Mabel, his love I He turned her head up 
toward him and gently kissed her, and kept his 


Leave Me My Honor, 107 

lips on hers, catching the tremulous sighs and 
sobs, until he fell asleep again. 

Heavy was his heart next morning as he real- 
ized that this was the last time he would have her 
thus. Greedily he kissed her, then gently laid her 
down and slipped away from her. 

He ate his solitary breakfast — Leah had not 
come down this morning — and went out ; nor did 
he return until three o'clock and then Mr. Sev- 
erne was with him. 

Mabel was alone. For an hour she was clos- 
eted with the lawyer, and, when he left, her face 
was pale and her eyes red with weeping. 

She went to where her husband waited in the 
library, and seating herself on his knee flung her 
arms about his neck and sobbed: ‘'I wonder if 
you know how hard it is for me to part from you." 

“Then why do it?" said Max, clasping her close. 

“Because I must," she answered. “It will be 
better — better for all of us. Good-bye, Max, it 
is hard to part from you, but do it I must, or — 
or be miserable forever. Kiss me, kiss me a 
dozen times, then let me go." 

Max kissed her twelve times, she returning 
each kiss, then he jammed his hat over his eyes 
and left the house and the city. 

He told no one where he was going, he did not 
know himself. His ticket said Chicago, but he 
got off the train many miles this side of the White 
City. 

Mabel, when he was gone, threw herself on the 
floor in an agony of grief, and when she rose 


io8 Leave Me My Honor. 

again, she lavished kisses on the chair he had oc- 
cupied. 

‘‘Max is gone,’* she said, when Leah returned 
with Dr. Russell from a drive. 

“Without bidding me good-bye,^’ sighed Leah, 
sadly, “but perhaps he couldn’t help it, my poor 
Maximilian.” 

“Did you keep your promise to me, Mrs. Stan- 
hope?” the doctor asked when Leah had retired 
to take off her wraps. 

“Yes,” said Mabel, drearily, “I kept it.” 

Dr, Bob shook his head. “It is beyond my 
comprehension,” he owned; “the comedy has 
turned to tragedy in my hands. If ever I was 
sure of anything in my life, I was sure that you 
loved your husband and that he loved you. I 
could have sworn that you would never part, yet 
you have parted ; it is sad, sad. I don’t under- 
stand the married state, I guess. How a husband 
and wife could separate as you have done, is a 
mystery to me. Now, it is you who are applying 
for a divorce, tell me why do you do so?” 

Mabel smiled. “He loves Leah,” she said, 
and heaved a heavy sigh, “has loved her for eigh- 
teen years; and as she is now a widow, I free 
him so that he can marry her.” 

“Great God !” the doctor gasped, “and they say 
there is no self-sacrifice these days! Does Leah 
know of this ? Does she love him ?” 

“She knows only I have applied for a divorce, 
not my reason for doing so, and I wish her never 
to know it, doctor; it would make her unhappy. 
I love Leah and would have her life bright, as 
Ralph longed it should be. She loves Max de- 


Leave Me My Honor, 109 

votedly as a friend and will soon learn to love 
him the other way when he asks her again to 
marry him.” 

“She shall not marry him! I say she shall not! 
She was given to me.” 

Dr. Bob stood before Mabel, his head flung 
back, his eyes ablaze, his voice hoarse with earn- 
estness. 

“What do you mean?” she asked gently. 

“I cannot explain,” he answered; “but Leah, 
beautiful Leah, shall be my wife and no other 
man's. She is mine!” and he looked like a lion 
at bay. 

“Max will have a powerful rival,” Mabel 
thought as the doctor left her, “but he will win — 
Max will win ; who could resist him a second 
time !” 

“Where is Dr. Russell?” Leah asked, looking 
about for him when she came down. 

“Gone,” said Mabel, abstractedly. 

“My, but the men treat me shabbily!” Leah 
grumbled. “Not even with ordinary politeness! 
Mabel,” she went on, after a pause, “shall I go 
to my own home now, or do you want me to stay 
with you until the divorce is granted?” 

“You must stay with me, dear,” Mabel an- 
swered. “Don't leave me! I love you!” 

“And I love you, Mabel, and my heart bleeds 
for Max. Not to see him about here, will seem 
as if they had carried him out as they carried 
Ralph. When I have been out there with him I 
feel comforted — but you cannot seek solace at 
Max's grave, think of it ; and you have lived with 


no Leave Me My Honor. 

him fourteen years ! Why, you would not kick a 
dog out that would have been yours that long ! I 
could beat you, Mabel, yet I love you! Poor 
Max, where are you? Where has he gone, Ma- 
bel?” 

do not know,” laconically. 

“What? Didn’t he tell you where he was go- 
ing?” 

“No.” 

“Nor me either ! I wonder if he told the doc- 
tor, I will ask him to-night when he comes. He 
said he would drop in for a little while, after 
eight, but I guess he won’t, having rushed off in 
that fashion just now. What will we do with 
ourselves to-night, Mabel? There’s dinner, and 
only two women to eat it 1 I really don’t see how 
I can exist without Max! Come on,” and she 
linked her arm in Mabel’s, “we’ll make the effort 
anyway.” 

Leah ate heartily; Mabel very sparingly and 
she was glad when the meal was over and they 
could return to the snuggery. Here she could 
half sit, half lie, on a pile of pillows and think 
of Max, — but Leah took up the music book con- 
taining Max’s compositions, and after looking 
through it till she came to what struck her fancy, 
brought it to Mabel and asked, “How does this 
go, on page 34? I never heard Max sing that.” 

“What is it?” Mabel inquired. “I can’t see 
it well over here away from the light.” 

“ 'Des Madchen’s Klage.’ I’ll read it out to 
you, and then you can play it and sing it for me. I 
know it is sweet.” 

She read the lament of the maiden who lived 


Ill 


Leave Me My Honor, 


in the conviction that ’tis better to have loved and 
lost than never to have loved at all, but she failed 
to interest her friend. 

“What’s the matter, love,” she teased, “feel 
very, very blue? Say, Mabel, let’s disguise our- 
selves and go to the theatre.” 

“Not to-night, dear. I’d like to oblige you, and 
we could do it without being found out, but to- 
night — I couldn’t do it to-night.” 

“Ah, Mabel, if you would only let me per- 
suade you. I am sure we would both be the bet- 
ter for it. Come on, Mabel, let’s get ready and 

go.” 


Mabel languidly rose from her reclining posi- 
tion — whether to yield to Leah’s wish or not will 
never be told, — just as Dr. Russell entered. 

Leah faced him guiltily. 

“What were you two conspirators plotting?” 
he inquired. 

“Had you not appeared on the scene,” answered 
Leah, boldly, “Mabel and I would have gone to 
the theatre to-night, — disguised, you know.” 

“Come here and sit down.” 

She took a seat on the same sofa with him. 

“I want you to promise me solemnly, never to 
go anywhere at night without a male escort, nor 
you either, Mrs. Stanhope. You’re in my charge, 
too, — I’m a regular squire of dames — and if you 
two desire to go anywhere to-night, or any night, 
I shall go with you. Will you promise?” 

“I will,” said Mabel. 

“I will not,” Leah exclaimed. “I will not 
bind myself to you or any other man to that ex- 


1 12 Leave Me My Honor. 

tent ; and I won’t go with you to-night, just be- 
cause you walked off in such a hurry before din- 
ner. 

Mabel heaved a sigh of relief. 

The doctor looked worried. 

“But suppose,” he went on desperately, “sup- 
pose Dr. Traynell should run across you at such 
a time — when you are alone and unprotected ” 

“I give in,” Leah stopped him, “and promise; 
but if I had a pistol or some other deadly weapon 
in my hand at the time, I would not be afraid of 
him. Do you know what I would like to do to 
him?” 

“No, what is it?” 

“I would like to give him a good caning. Noth- 
ing does a hound like that so much good as a 
cane.” 

Again the tiger was visible and Dr. Bob 
couldn’t resist passing his hand over her face as 
if he were wiping something from it. » 

Leah looked at him in surprise. 

“I was trying to rub that look off,” he ex- 
plained apologetically. “I can’t bear to see you 
so ferocious.” 

She laughed. 

“Ah, that’s better,” said the doctor, “you look 
absolutely savage when you frown, fierce and 
cruel, — and when you laugh ” 

“Well, when I laugh?” 

“You look like a baby.” 

As she went out into the hall with him, he 
abruptly drew to the curtains behind him and 
with eager haste kissed her twice on the mouth. 


Leave Me My Honor, 113 

then he ran down the steps and out of the front 
door. 

*'Let Max Stanhope or any other man come be- 
tween us and I’ll kill him,” he muttered savagely. 
‘'She was given to me. She is mine.” 


1 14 Leave Me My Honor. 


XIV. 

Max, dumb with misery, lying back in his seat, 
took no thought of where he was going until the 
conductor called out Columbus, the city in which 
resided Governor Fourfield. 1 hen, remembering 
the standing invitation to pay him a visit, he left 
the cars on the impulse of the moment and drove 
to his residence. 

The Governor was delighted. “I am glad to 
have you here in my lonely old house with me,” 
he said. “But why did you not bring your wife 
with you, that dainty little article with the sweet 
blue eyes and the corn silk top knot ? She’s a lit- 
tle beauty, Stanhope, and you shouldn’t have left 
her behind.” 

“She has applied for a divorce from me, Four- 
field.” 

“Great Heaven! You don’t tell me so!” cried 
the Governor, starting to his feet. “What for? 
Couldn’t you hit it together? Surely you didn’t 
run after anything else when you had that lovely 
bit of china!” 

“No, Joe, ’tis a case of a black-mailing sou- 
brette, kept on hand for the purnose, of special 
officials hired to bear false witness, and capable 
counsel handsomely feed with a few months’ 
time to do the work in. No, it is not I, — she loves 
another man, and wants to marry him.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 115 

“I beg your pardon, but I don’t believe it, and 
don’t you try to ram it down my throat! She 
loves another man? Not on your life, sir; why, 
she loves the ground you walk on and is as 
jealous as a Choctaw. Don’t tell me! I say she 
loves you and is jealous of Leah, beautiful Leah, 
who is a widow now. And when a decent time 
has elapsed, I’m going East to ask her to be- 
come Governor’s lady. Maybe she won't refuse 
me this time. How is she, the poor girl, all 
broke up over Ralph’s death, I expect.” 

‘'She took it very hard, but is getting ovci it 
a little, she laughed some last night, not much.” 

“I should like to have been there, all the same, 
when she showed her crooked little grinders. 
Doesn’t she look for all the world like a baby 
that you want to kiss or spank when she laughs ?” 

“She does,” said Max, “but if you wish her to 
regard you in the light of a possible suitor for her 
hand, you had better put in your application early. 
Traynell has already proposed to her and there’s 
yet another in the field.” 

“Traynell? That’s the doctor who was with 
Mason Worrell when he died, isn’t it?” 

“The same,” said Max, and he told the Govern- 
or of his conduct with Leah. 

“The cur !” the Governor exclaimed in un- 

controllable excitement. “I’d like to shoot him for 
that ! Why didn’t you chastise him for it ?” 

“Because another man got ahead of me and 
kicked him all over the pavement for it.” 

“Good,” said the Governor. “I should like to 
shake that man by the hand, who is he?” 

“Dr. Robert Russell.” 


ii6 Leave Me My Ho?ior, 

remember that name ; my grandmother was 
a Russell. Say, care to help along in the spring 
campaign out here?” 

'‘No, Joe, I have dropped politics and every- 
thing else along with Mabel. I’m going on a big 
tear as soon as that thing is granted and she is 
married to the other.” 

“You won’t if you stay out here with me. Stan- 
hope. Nonsense, man, don’t take it to heart like 
that!” 

Max, unable to answer, went to his room ; and 
the Governor, in his study, with his elbows on his 
desk, had a very disagreeable subject to contem- 
plate. 

Max spent the most of his time while out West 
conning the Philadelphia papers, and one day he 
saw in the Ledger that the divorce was granted. 

He showed the announcement to the Governor. 
“Seeing is believing, I suppose,” said that gentle- 
man, throwing himself back in his leathern arm- 
chair to look at Max, with the obnoxious para- 
graph under his finger, “but I would have gambled 
on it that her heart was all your own; that no 
other man had an inch of room in it, — and 
by gum, I believe it yet, and she shall have 
the benefit of the doubt until I see her sec- 
ond marriage published in the papers! There’s 
some mistake somewhere, and you ought to be up 
and doing trying to find out where, instead of sit- 
ting about, moping as you do. Why, you’re no more 
than a ghost of yourself, man ; these last months 
have been hard on you. From now on I shall 
keep my eyes open; and I’ll bet you that we see 


heave Me My Honor. 117 

neither the announcement of Mabel's engagement 
nor the record of her second marriage in the 
papers inside of the next month. If she was in a 
hurry to get rid of you for the reason you men- 
tion, she will not delay much longer in giving 
some hint of a new alliance being in contem- 
plation, or the fact of its actual accomplishment.’^ 

“I’ll take you up, Fourfield,” said Max. 

“No, sir,’’ the Governor protested, “I’ll win.” 

Every day for a month Max and the Governor 
looked over the society news for some mention of 
Mabel’s engagement or through the marriage col- 
unms for her notice, but no mention was made 
of her in any shape or form. 

Said Max, “I don’t know what to think about 
Mabel. I must know something about her. I 
think I’ll write to Leah.” 

“Write to Leah? Nonsense, man; write to the 
doctor or some other friend.” 

“Why?” 

“Because your wife ^as used to be’ is jealous of 
Leah.” 

“How can she be jealous when she never loved 
me and does love another man?” 

“Who is the fellow?” 

“I don’t know. He must be one she’s ashamed 
of.” 

“You never found out who it was?” 

“I never did.” 

“Couldn’t Leah tell you ? She was her most in- 
timate friend.” 

“She could not tell me. She did not know.” 

“Then depend upon it there never was another 


ii8 Leave Me My Honor. 

fellow. Write to Dr. Russell and ask him if 
Mabel has any particular follower, and if he can’t 
give you anything definite. Take the next train 
East and watch about yourself. T don’t want to 
appear inhospitable, Max. You will give me credit, 
I know, for having a sincere affection for you 
and pleasure in your company. It might be the 
coachman or butler; such things do happen; 
pshaw, not with her ; I say it again, she loves you 
and no other.” 

'T’ll write to Dr. Bob,” Max decided, ‘'and see 
what comes of it.” 

“And ril write to Leah and see what comes of 
it,” Governor Fourfield resolved. 

Both letters went out in that night’s mail. 


Leave Me My Honor, 119 


XV. 

After the divorce was granted Leah insisted on 
going to her own home. “I would not stay in 
this house now for anything/’ she said to Mabel, 
“I could not.” 

Mabel cried and clung to her and begged to 
be allowed to go with her. “I will stay in my 
room,” she said, ''out of the way ; only let me be 
with you. I will kill myself if you leave me here 
in this big house all alone.” 

Leah was perplexed. Why should Mabel be so 
anxious to live with her now that she was free 
from Max and could marry her lover and be with 
him as soon as she pleased ? What should she do ? 
She would ask Dr. Bob. "I will decide upon that 
to-night, Mabel,” she finally said. "I do not think 
that it will be a wise arrangement as things now 
are. I am loyal to Max, you know. Dr. Bob 
will know what is best for us. I will speak to 
him about it this afternoon, and tell you to-night 
what he says.” 

So, when occasion oflfered, Leah opened up the 
subject by announcing to the doctor her intention 
of going back to her own home now that Mabel 
was divorced. "I cannot stay any longer with 
her,” she averred. "I couldn’t bear to see another 
man in Max Stanhope’s place.” 


120 Leave Me My Honor. 

“I don’t think there is any likelihood of that 
shortly,” he replied. “Mrs. Stanhope loved her 
husband too well to forget him lightly.” 

“She did not love him ; she loves another man.” 

“Did she ever tell you that?” 

“No; but she acknowledged to Max that she 
had a lover when she asked him to set her free.” 

“I don’t understand it,” said Dr. Russell, sigh- 
ing, and stroking his chin thoughtfully. 

“I told her this morning,” Leah went on, “that 
I should leave her soon and go to my own home. 
She cried and begged me to take her with me; 
said she would stay in her room to be out of my 
way ; what does she mean by that, I wonder, and 
what do you advise me to do?” 

“Take her with you by all means.” 

“And let that man come to my house?” 

“What man?” 

“Her lover.” 

“She hasn’t a lover.” 

“But she said to Max she had a lover.” 

“She may have said that but she has none. 
Take my word for it. She loved no man but hef 
husband.” 

“Then why should she say that to him and break 
his heart ? Poor dear fellow !” 

“She was divorced from her husband so that he 
could marry another woman. She sacrificed her- 
self for her husband and friend.” 

“Are you in your right senses, sir? Pm het 
friend, you know.” 

“And you are the woman she thinks will marry 
Max. But you shall not marry him.” 

“What have you to do with it, pray?” 


I2I 


Leave Me My Honor, 

^‘You were given to me/’ 

‘‘Let us go home. I want to get back to Ma- 
bel as soon as I can, and won’t you please make it 
your business to find out where Max is ? He must 
come back to Philadelphia as soon as ever he can. 
Find out where he is and wire him that I want 
him.” 

“You are not going to marry him. Do you 
hear me?” 

“I will do as I please about that.” 

“Then he may stay where he is until kingdom 
come,” Dr. Bob said to himself, “for all I’ll do 
to fetch him.” 

The two women were now established in Leah’s 
house, and she exerted herself to make the time 
pass pleasantly for both, but there was still no 
news of Max. 

One night she happened to think of Mr. 
Severne, and concluded to call on him the next 
morning for the much-desired information. 

There was no need for that. The morning post 
brought her Governor Fourfield’s letter. 

It began as follows: 

“Dear Beautiful Leah: — Max Stanhope is 
here with me ” 

She read no further but with it open in her 
hand, ran into Mabel’s room. “Mabel ! Mabel !” 
she cried. “Max is found. He is with Governor 
Fourfield, and you must telegraph him to come 
back to you immediately. Do you hear, you fool- 
ish thing, who sent and turned adrift a husband 


122 Leave Me My Honor, 

who loved you, not me, aye and loved you ever 
since you became his wife! Could not you see it? 
I guess not; we are all moles occasionally; I 
couldn’t see that you loved him either.” 

Mabel, who was still in bed after a restless 
night, rubbed her eyes and stared at Leah. “What 
is it you say?” she asked dreamily, “that Max 
loves me and not you ? Is that a letter from him in 
your hands?” 

“No,” Leah answered, “it is from Governor 
Fourfield. Max is with him.” 

“Let me see it !” 

“Here it is ; I haven’t read it myself yet, except 
the first sentence.” 

Mabel devoured the letter, and returning it to 
her friend threw herself back on her pillow with 
such a peal of joyful laughter as Leah had not 
heard for a long, long time. 

“You had better retire to your room,” she said, 
“that’s the only place to savor a billet-doux at 


Leave Me My Honor. 123 


XVL 

Leah, half offended, was not slow to comply 
and began right from the first line again : 

'^Dear Beautiful Leah : — Max Stanhope is 
here with me and informs me that poor Ralph 
made you over to a certain Dr. Robert Russell: 
now the said Dr. Robert Russell shall not have 
you, for I want you. Once again I ask you to 
marry me; and something tells me you won’t 
refuse me this time. I love you, Leah; have 
loved you for eighteen years ; will you say ‘no’ to 
the doctor and ‘yes’ to me when the six months 
are up ? 

“Send me just one word, ‘yes,’ or ‘no.’ If it is 
‘yes,’ I will fly to you. If you send me a ‘no’ — 
but I feel you will not, and so will say nothing 
about it. 

“Stanhope feels terribly the parting from his 
wife. He is worn to a shadow. It is pitiful to 
see him scanning the papers day by day for the an- 
nouncement of Mabel’s engagement to the other 
man or the notice of her marriage to him. 

“I cannot understand it; but I am just as sure 
as that I am sitting here writing to you that Mabel 
Stanhope loved her husband and was jealous of 
you. 


124 Leave Me My Honor, 

*Try hard to find out who the other man is — 
if there is another, which I still doubt. There is a 
mistake somewhere ; of that I am convinced, in 
spite of the fact that she told her husband that 
she had a lover. Ask her point blank ‘Do you love 
Max, or do you love another man?’ and send me 
her answer. I would do much to bring peace to 
his heart. 

“He does not love you, Leah, except as a friend, 
but I love you sincerely, passionately. Bear that 
in mind when you send me your answer, and let 
it be ‘yes,’ I pray you. 

“Joseph Fourfield.” 

“Governor Fourfield, eh?” Leah said to her- 
self, when she had come to the end. “I’ll think 
it over, my dear sir, and after the doctor has 
spoken will send you your message.” 

She smiled into the mirror before which she was 
sitting in a pleased way. “There is hope for me 
yet,” she thought, “when men like Dr. Bob and 
the Governor, to say nothing of that cur, Traynell, 
declare they are anxious to wed me, and I have not 
been a widow for quite six months yet. Hm, 
‘Governor’s Lady’ doesn’t sound so bad! But I 
have not settled with Dr. Traynell yet. He will 
come for an answer soon now, — and — I guess I’ll 
let Governor Fourfield give it to him. Now for 
Mabel.” 

Mabel Had sent her husband the message: 
“Come back to me,” and received the reply : “All 
right,” and she was as bright and as sparkling as 
a sunlit pond-lily. “I am going home to-day, 
Leah,” she announced at breakfast; “home, and 


Leave Me My Honor. 125 

you must not come with me. Alone I shall meet 
him on the threshold, my dear one! Why, here 
comes Dr. Bob ; what brings him here so early ?” 

“May I see you alone, please,” he said to Ma- 
bel, as soon as he entered ; and there was a sheep- 
ish something about his demeanor which did not 
pass unnoticed. 

“Mrs. Stanhope,” he said, when he found him- 
self alone with her, “I have a message to deliver to 
you and afterward a confession to make to you.” 

“Is it from Max?” she exclaimed. 

“It is,” he answered. “Here is a note I received 
from him this morning. 

“My dear Friend: — I have been here with 
Governor Fourfield since I left Philadelphia, 
sea'^ching the papers day by day for news of Ma- 
bel — you know what I mean. 

“Kindly let me know, at once, the date set for 
her marriage and the name of the man. Go right 
to her and ask her; I must know. How I loved 
her God and Leah alone know. Wire, I can’t wait 
for a letter.” 

“May I keep this note ?” she begged, holding it 
close to her heart. 

Dr. Bob nodded. 

“He will be here to-night,” Mabel continued. 
“This is not the first news I have had of him to- 
day. Leah received a letter from Governor Four- 
field in the early mail, and I have wired Max to 
come back to me ! Is it not glorious, the news that 
he loves me? But you always said he did and in- 
sisted on it, till I told you I had divorced him so 


126 Leave Me My Honor, 

that he could marry Leah. You have been a 
changed man since then.” 

“I know it, Mrs. Stanhope. I did not want him 
to take Leah from me. Leah, some weeks ago, 
begged me to find Max for her, after I had men- 
tioned to her the fact that you had sacrificed your- 
self for your husband and friend. I couldn’t 
bear to have her leave you; to think you had a 
lover — and I must own the trutu, Mrs. Stanhope, 
I never moved a finger to find him. It is the first 
time in my life that I have acted dishonorably; 
but I love Leah, and did not know that she was 
anxious to find him for you. I see it plainly now, 
bat that I am, but I thought she wanted him for 
herself ; forgive me, won’t you?” 

“I forgive you freely. Dr. Bob, I am too happy 
to-day to harbor resentment ; as to Leah, I cannot 
tell; she has peculiar ideas about honor. Sup- 
pose you don’t let her know that you made no 
effort to find Max until after — until after you have 
asked her to marry you. You have more than 
one stumbling block in your way as it is. Gov- 
ernor Fourfield’s letter contained a proposal of 
marriage.” 

^‘Governor Fourfield !” 

^‘Yes.” 

‘^Neither Governor Fourfield nor any other 
man shall have her! Ralph Wentworth gave her 
to me ! She is mine !” 

The doctor arose from his chair and walked 
excitedly up and down the long apartment. 

Mabel followed him with her eyes until he re- 
turned to his seat, then she said firmly: “Dr. 
Russell, Leah does net love you.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 127 

‘^She loved me once, dolt that I am, she loved 
me once!” he answered. 

“But she does not now.” 

“She shall love me again. She learned to love 
Ralph Wentworth.” 

“Yes, but it took her eighteen years,” sighed 
Mabel, “and it took me fourteen to find out that 
Max loved me and not her. How dull and stupid 
and blind are the best of us I But we two will be 
happy now! Come to the snuggery to-night and 
sit a while with Leah.” 

The doctor grew calmer. The red flush of vex- 
ation on his face gave place to the pale dawn of 
hope. 

“Where shall I find her?” 

“In the parlor, I think.” 

A few moments later he stood embarrassed be- 
fore her. 

“Well?” she queried. 

“I want to acknowledge to you,” he replied 
slowly, “that I never troubled myself a single 
second to find out the whereabouts of Max Stan- 
hope. I received a letter from him this morning, 
which makes this confession of mine imperative.” 

“Where is the letter?” 

“His wife has it.” 

“What was in it ?” 

“I can't repeat it word for word, but he states 
that he has been with Governor Fourfield since he 
left the city and he desires me to send him the date 
set for Mabel's second marriage and the name of 
the man she is to marry — he knows it all by this 
time, I guess. The concluding sentence ‘How I 


128 Leave Me My Honor. 

loved my wife God and Leah alone know’ opened 
up to me a whole fountain of knowledge.” 

Leah looked curiously at him. ^‘What is it you 
know now that you were ignorant of before you 
read that sentence ?” she asked. 

know now,” the doctor answered briefly, 
*'that you wished me to find Max Stanhope not for 
yourself but for Mabel.” 

“Well, for the densest brain-boxes that e’er 
came out of Nature’s mills, ‘My country ’tis to 
thee’ the prize belongs !” half-chanted Leah, as 
she thrust into the doctor’s buttonhole a stem of 
magnolia she had just brought in from the garden. 
Either the stem was too thick or the buttonhole 
too small; her two hands had to be called into 
requisition. The opportunity was too tempting to 
be missed, and before Leah’s task was accom- 
plished, Dr. Bob’s lips held her fingers captive. 

“What is that for?” she asked. 

“I want to thank you for not scolding me, and 
for the flower, too.” 

“What would I scold you for ?” 

“For not finding Max Stanhope for you.” 

“That was shabby of you, sir; but let it pass. 
Governor Fourfield had him all the time. I re- 
ceived a letter from the Governor this morning, 
but sit down. Can’t you stay a little while?” 

He took a chair beside her. “Will you let me 
see the letter?” he asked. 

“What interest have you in it ?” 

“He asked you to marry him in that letter.” 

“He did,” Leah replied with as much emphasis 
as the doctor had put in his statement. 

“And what will be your answer?” 


Leave Me My Honor, 129 

‘‘I do not know yet.” 

“You know that you belong to me, do you not?” 

Leah raised her eyes on a level with his. “I 
belong to nobody,” she said, ‘'now that Ralph is 
gone.” 

“But he gave you to me.” 

“I think not.” 

“He made me promise to ask you to marry me 
at the expiration of six months from the time of 
his death.” 

“Had he much difficulty in obtaining that prom- 
ise, Dr. Bob?” 

“He had at first.” 


130 Leave Me My Honor. 


XVIL 

Leah's tears now flowed freely. 

“And what did you think after you had left 
him?" 

“I thought that I had better not let my mind 
stray in your direction while he lived." 

“And after he died ?" 

“After he died, I looked upon you as the woman 
destined to become my wife, a sacred trust left in 
my keeping, as mine to have and to hold until 
death do us part." 

“Dr. Bob, suppose you really had me, that I was 
in fact your wife, how could you trust me? I 
would flirt the same as I did while Ralph lived, 
and might run across another Dr. Bob, who would 
touch my heart as you did. You touched it, that 
is all. You did not grasp it and hold it, and it is 
likely that you never will. The seeds I cast fell 
on a rocky soil when I gave you that bit of my 
heart." 

“I was an honest man, Leah, and I hope that I 

Leah was apparently in no Byronic mood, 
am one still, though you are enough to lead 
a man through paths of wickedness into Hades, — 
yet, Vithout thee, where would be my heaven T " 
“Have you said all you want to say to me this 


Leave Me My Honor. 13 r 

"'None where you are concerned. Dr. Bob.” 
morning ?” she asked with a tinge of irony in her 
voice. 

'‘No, I want to ask you to marry me : will you ?” 

“I will not, Dr. Russell,” was the stern reply. 

“But Ralph said you should, at the end of six 
months! Have the wishes of the dead no power 
over you?” 

“Leah, Leah,” the doctor cried, impulsively 
grasping her hands and holding them firmly, “you 
are mine and I love you. Look into my eyes and 
see if I do not.” 

She looked at him. “You are dangerous,” she 
said, “release me.” 

“Not until you promise to marry me.” And 
now he had drawn her to her feet and his arms 
encircled her. 

“The six months are not up yet, quite ; you are 
speaking too soon,” Leah said in a decided tone. 

Dr. Bob persisted : “Leah, Leah, give me back 
just the bit of your heart I once held! The seeds 
you cast did not fall on a rocky soil when you gave 
it to me; you had my love then as you have it 
now. I kept it within bounds, that is all. Give it 
back to me, do !” 

“I cannot, Dr. Bob, it is gone from you ; yet, I 
am fond of you in a way. It hurts me to see you 
so excited and miserable. I want to comfort 
you.” 

“Do that for me, Leah, and I will bless you all 
my life.” 

Leah and Mabel were at the Stanhope mansion 
early in the afternoon of that fateful day. 


132 Leave Me My Honor. 

As prearranged, Dr. Russell, though pale and 
distressed looking, reported for dinner, after 
which he begged to be excused on the plea of a 
professional call, until eight o’clock. 

“Doctor,” said Mabel, as he was leaving, “that 
magnolia you are wearing has lost its freshness. 
Throw it away and let me give you another ; ours 
are in bloom.” 

Dr. Bob looked at Leah, and laid his hand 
caressingly on the blossom as he answered, “I 
could not throw away this flower, Mrs. Stanhope, 
it is too precious.” 

“But it is wilted; here, give it to me, since 
you value it so highly, and let me put it in water 
for you, to freshen it up.” 

He smiled significantly as he unpinned it from 
his lapel, and said, as he handed it to Mabel, “It 
is wilted, as you say; let it regain vigor.” 

Leah understood him, but Mabel was puzzled, 
and as soon as they were left alone she asked 
the meaning of the doctor’s smile in connection 
with his comment on the magnolia. 

“He asked me to marry him to-day,” Leah ex- 
plained, “when I came in from the garden and 
pinned the magnolia blossom on his coat. The 
flower, he wishes me to understand, is emblematic 
of my love for him. It has wilted, he wants it 
revived.” 

“You refused him then, Leah?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you are going to accept Governor Four- 
field.” 

“I am.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 133 

“Did you really ever love Dr. Bob as he sup- 
poses you did ?“ 

“I think so, yes. He touched my heart, and if 
he had given me the slightest encouragement, 
there's no knowing how it might have ended. 
We are like wild beasts, the pair of us ; he has the 
ferocity of the wolf, I that of the tiger. Between 
Dr. Bob and Dr. Traynell I will have my hands 
full, Mabel ; 'thar'll be trouble in de camp,' I 
guess, but the Governor is gallant and brave and 
he loves me." 

“But you do not love him, Leah. It will be 
with you and him as it was with you and Ralph." 

“Precisely ; and is it not a wise life for a mar- 
ried woman to lead ? Was I not happy with Ralph 
before I learned to love him? He made my life 
bright and loved me. That is what the Governor 
will do also. I shall have a good time and be al- 
lowed to flirt with whom I please ; but will you, I 
wonder, ever flirt again?" 

“Never again," said Mabel, solemnly. 

“Then you will be a dull old woman. How the 
swains will miss you, and how our set will laugh 
at you, — behind your back, of course." 

“I shan't mind, I will have Max." 

“And haven't you had him for fourteen years, 
pray ?" 

“I have had him that long, yes, but I thought 
he loved you." 

“All that time?" 

“All that time. He told me before we were mar- 
ried that he loved you and when I saw you for the 
first time together, I thought that he loved vou 
still." 


134 heave Me My Honor, 

"'And would have given him to me, you foolish, 
foolish Mabel ! But, tell me, how could you spend 
all these years with him without telling him that 
he had your heart ? That would have brought out 
a revelation of his real sentiments, I fancy. You 
told me, if I remember rightly, that you married 
him without love.’’ 

“So I did, but I love him now, and oh, how I 
long for his return ! How slowly the hours drag 
along to-day ! Do they not seem to grudge me the 
happiness my heart craves for ?” 


Leave Me My Honor. 135 


XVIII. 

'‘I WILL go down now/' said Mabel, “and wait 
for Max in the reception hall, and when the cab 
stops, I will meet him on the threshold/' Her 
cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled with 
anticipated bliss. 

At last, from her watching post in the hall she 
heard the rattle of a cab down the street, then the 
driver's “whoa," the slamming of a carriage door, 
and at last his steps on the marble stoop. 

“Max, Max," she cried as he crossed the 
threshold, and she dropped in his arms, overcome 
with emotion. 

He put her down and with his arm about her 
walked up the stairs with her to the snuggery. 

“My own Maximilian !" said Leah, as she flew 
to meet him. 

“Leah, the beautiful!" he exclaimed. “How 
glad I am to see you again !" 

Max shook hands with the doctor, then turned 
to Mabel again and took her in his arms, which 
was a broad hint that he had no time for anybody 
else just then. 

The doctor and Leah smiled at each other as 
they hastily left the room, the doctor with the 
magnolia in water in his hand. 

“My poor Mabel, how bravely she bore up to 
the very last," remarked Leah. “Her eyes did 


136 Leave Me My Honor. 

not leave Max a moment while he was kissing me 
and shaking hands with you, and he counted the 
time wasted until he could get back to her. So 
fearfully thin he is, poor Maximilian ! But he will 
be happy now and so will Mabel. It is only I 
who will be lonely and sad.’* 

“Not necessarily,” said Dr. Bob cheerfully. 
“There is nothing to prevent our going with them 
to Camden as early as possible to-morrow morn- 
ing — this morning rather — and being married 
with them.” 

Leah laughed. “When I marry again,” she 
said, “if ever again I do anything so foolish, it will 
be with bells ringing, whistles blowing, bands 
playing, people shouting, and it will not be in 
Camden.” 

Dr. Bob stared gloomily into space and said 
nothing. 

Leah put her hand on his shoulder. “You and 
I, Robert Russell, will be dear friends always,” 
she said, “nothing more.” 

Still the doctor spoke not, but now glared at 
the magnolia, which stood on the table before him 
in all its waxen beauty, for it had opened wide its 
dainty petals. 

Leah looked, too, and bent over it and inhaled 
its fragrance. 

“You think,” she said, “that the love I once 
bore you will come back.” There was hope in his 
glance. “If it does,” and here her voice dropped 
and faltered, “it will make me very unhappy or 
utterly reckless, for I should be another man’s 
wife, very probably, at that time. You do not 
answer ?” 


Leave Me My Honor, 137 

cannot, Leah!” and he laid his head on his 
arms but could not hide his deep emotion from 
her. 

It was the first time Leah had seen a strong 
man in his agony give way to woman’s weakness, 
and it affected her strangely. 

‘‘Dr. Bob,” she pleaded, taking his head in her 
arms, “do not give way in that fashion I You are 
bitterly disappointed, I know; but do not let it 
break your heart ! If I loved you, I would marry 
you as Ralph desired me to, but I do not. Yet I 
love to be with you and it kills me to see you mis- 
erable. There, there, don’t let that wolfish look 
creep into your eyes, it frightens me ! ‘Make her 
life bright,’ said Ralph ; ‘it would be very dark if 
she lost your friendship.’ And now look up, be 
alive, responsive, smile at me with your eyes as 
well as your lips. Your eyes are beautiful when 
they are kind. I do not — I do not like them so 
intent and cold and sad.” 

“I am sorry you noted my distress,” he said, 
“but Leah, Leah, it will kill me if you leave me ! 
I love you and have done so from the first, though 
my pride and my manhood would not allow me 
to acknowledge it even to myself I Shall I prove 
it to you? See this.” And from his breast he 
drew a pocket-case in which a large linen hand- 
kerchief lay carefully folded. “Here is the hand- 
kerchief with which I wiped away your tears,” he 
explained. 

There are coincidences in the feelings of human 
beings that no philosopher can account for or 
would explain if he could ; and thus it came to 
pass that Leah and her lover, like two pieces of 


138 Leave Me My Honor, 

machinery moved by one and the same spring, 
proceeded to the blissful haven where two wrecked 
hearts were relishing their escape from the storm. 

“All quiet along the Potomac, the doctor whis- 
pered, and he beat the devil’s tattoo on the door. 

“All right,” came from inside, and after a short 
delay, the door opened to them. “What have you 
two been up to?” asked Max, curiously. “You 
look as though you had been enjoying yourselves.” 

“And do you know what you two look like?” 
the doctor retorted. “You look guilty — oh, I 
wasn’t going to accuse you of anything but mur- 
dering sleep for each other,” he quickly added as 
he saw a faint blush on Mabel’s face; “I’ll bet 
you a silver candlestick, colonial pattern, against 
the glass that holds this magnolia” — for he still 
had the flower and its holder with him — “that 
neither one of you will close your eyes in sleep 
for the rest of the night: and to-morrow you’ll 
be the greenest couple that ever went to Camden 
to get married. I wish Leah would marry me 
there, too, to-morrow; it is my birthday, you 
know.” 

“What does Leah say to that?” Mabel asked 
anxiously. 

“She says ^no,’ but I shall not give her up so 
easily; if not to-morrow, then it shall be some 
other day. Come on now, my young man, it’s 
time to go home. Turn your back to us and bid 
your lady love good night. And when that’s over, 
turn about face ! left foot forward, march !” 

“You are happy now, my dear Mabel,” said 
Leah, kneeling down beside her when the men had 
gone, “and I am indeed delighted. You were so 


Leave Me My Honor,, [139 

miserable, my poor little birdie; another month 
without him would have brought you to the grave. 
He, too, is pale, and worn to a shadow ; his eyes 
could not leave you as he walked to the door. 
Tis good to be so loved !” 

“Why, how about you, my Leah ? Are you not 
loved, too? Dr, Bob worships you, I know, and 
Governor Fourfield adores you. Max says.’' 

“So? Anything more about the Governor?” 
“He can neither eat nor sleep for thinking of 
you. Have you sent him your answer?” 

“Not yet. ’ I will send it to-morrow.” 

“And what will it be?” 

“It will be ” 


140 Leave Me My Honor, 


XIX. 

After the first half hour of happy reunion, 
Max and Mabel began to talk things over a little. 

“And you thought I loved Leah all the time !’" 
he sighed, breaking a long silence. 

she replied, “I did. You told me of 
your love for Leah before we were married, you 
remember, but I did not love you then and so did 
not care ” 

“But I loved you,” he interrupted her with sud- 
den passion, “the moment I saw you. It was at 
the Assembly Ball in Baltimore, and you flirted 
with me outrageously! ‘There’s a girl after my 
own heart,’ I thought, ‘a little beauty and a great 
flirt;’ and I determined from that night to give 
you no peace till you married me. You told me 
that you did not love me when I asked you to 
become my bride, but Leah did not love Ralph 
either, and they lived happily. I was glad to get 
you on any terms!” 

“I did not care about your past because I did 
not love you,” Mabel reiterated, “but I had no 
sooner become your wife than you had all my 
heart, every passionate fibre of it. I loved you 
as devotedly as you did me and looked forward to 
the happiest kind of a life spent by your side. 
The next day you took me to see the Wentworths ; 


Leave Me My Honor, 141 

and then you kissed Leah as you had never kissed 
me before. I felt sure vou still loved her, and 
made up my mind then and there, never to let you 
see how dear you were to me.” 

“So it was that kiss that cost me fourteen years 
of torture,” mused Max, “it was a dear price to 
pay for it. Well, well, how small a thing may 
turn joy to sadness ! I was happy with my bride 
and glad to see my friends again after a long ab^ 
sence; and so, when I greeted Leah, I gave her 
the kiss I knew she liked best. And that’s all 
there was about it! We were hannv enoueh, Ma- 
bel, until Ralph died. Then you got the crazy 
crotchet into your head to give me up to Leah — 
and it nearly broke my heart when you asked me 
to let you have this house, to which I had brought 
you and in which you had lived with me as my 
wife for fourteen years. And don’t you think it 
was mean of you, sweetheart, to allow me to think 
you had a lover, to let me be with you day after 
day, and night after night, and believe that you 
looked on me only as his substitute? It’s beyond 
comprehension how cruel a woman can be!” 

“I never called any one ‘lover’ to you. Max, I 
merely spoke of the man I loved, and if you 
chose to take it up the other way, it was your 
fault that you suffered. I own I was cruel, and 
now I am sorry; but don’t you think you were 
enough to drive me insane with your ‘dying 
Leah’s lover in Leah’s arms’ ? What did you mean 
by it? Once you said: ‘Ah, to die Leah’s lover in 
Leah’s arms,’ and another time, after Ralph’s 
death: ‘Ralph, Ralph, to die Leah’s lover in 
Leah’s arms.’ ” 


142 Leave Me My Honor. 

“Why, darling of mine, those were the words 
spoken to me by Ralph himself. One day he as- 
serted to me that he would be willing to die upon 
the spot Xeah’s lover in Leah’s arms.’ The say- 
ing made a deep impression, and when he actually 
died in that very way, my mind was full of it. And 
how else could it be when the sentiment was ex- 
pressed in answer to a previous remark of my own, 
to the effect that I would be willing to give half 
of what I own to be your chosen lover for one 
whole day and night.” 

“And you have been my chosen lover for four- 
teen years. Max, and you are my chosen lover 
now.” 

Max’s only answer was a shower of kisses ; and 
it was just then the devil’s tattoo had sounded 
on the door. 

Next morning at ten o’clock Max and Dr. Bob 
called for the ladies and took them across the 
Delaware to the house of a notorious clergyman 
in Camden where Max Stanhope and Mabel Mor- 
ris were made man and wife again in short order ; 
and thanks to the ubiquitous newspaper reporter, 
thanks to some political friends that Stanhope 
chanced upon on the ferry boat, the happy event 
was given to the public almost as soon as it had 
taken nlace. 

Nor was it long ere the reunited pair opened 
their house again and gave a wedding reception 
5t which Leah Wentworth made her appearance 
together with the announcement of her speedily 
approaching marriage with Governor Fourfield 
of Ohio. 


Leave Me My Honor. 143 


XX. 

Governor Fourfield received his “yes’" and 
came to Philadelphia as quietly as possible on Sat- 
urday afternoon so as to be with Leah on her 
birthday. 

‘'How glad I am, Stanhope,’’ the Governor said 
as they were rolling down Broad Street, “that you 
are happy once more. You were in a fair way of 
worrying yourself to death out there! And Leah, 
how does she look? Say, old man, the journey 
seemed endless !” 

“She is bright and beautiful and happy, and is 
waiting for you at my house,” Max answered. 

“The young doctor, how does he take it?” 

“Badly enough. He wants me to take you to 
his office this morning, but if I were in your place 
I wouldn’t go.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because he is like a wild beast in his anger 
and disappointment.” 

“Have you any idea that I am afraid of him?” 

“Certainly not; but he is reckless of conse- 
quences and might cause trouble and scandal.” 

“I shall go to the doctor’s, notwithstanding.” 

Leah was radiant in a gown of white silk crepe, 
with heavy designs of white lace, when she ap- 


144 Leave Me My Honor* 

peared before the Governor in Mabel’s drawing 
room. 

Mabel was there, too, but stayed only long 
enough to make her welcome cordial and to give a 
pretext for her early withdrawal. 

The Governor was at last alone with his love 
and anxious to improve the occasion. ‘‘Leah, 
Leah,” he breathed, “mine at last, come to my 
heart !” 

With all apparent willingness she yielded to his 
embrace and his ardent caresses ; then taking a 
seat by his side, “Governor Fourfield,” she began. 

“My name is Joseph to you, my love.” 

“My dear Joseph, then, I want to tell you — to 
make it clear to you, that though I wired you that 
‘yes’ I do not really love you. I wish to become 
the Governor’s wife, to rule socially in your gay 
capital. I like you, however; have always done 
so, and will try to make you happy. Do you take 
me on those terms?” 

“On any terms, my darling, so that I get you. 
For eighteen years you have never been entirely 
out of my mind, and that night at the Academy, 
I was almost afraid to dance with you, for fear 
that I might,^ in a treacherous moment, become a 
villain and give way to my passion for you — and 
since then, my love, my love, T have been nearly 
distracted! A very frenzy of longing possessed 
me to be near you, and I would have come to you 
immediately after Ralph died had I not been 
ashamed to do so. Max Stanhope was a god- 
send to me. He satisfied me by speaking of you. 
Let me kiss you again, you dazzling, distracting, 
delicious morsel ! No, don’t stop me yet, I want to 


Leave Me My Honor. 145 


crowd as many as I can into the few hours I shall 
have with you — I leave again to-morrow night, 
you know/’ 

“Can’t you stay longer?’’ 

“No, I would be missed, and nobody is to know 
of this visit. You will be ready to marry me in a 
few weeks, I presume ? Or would you rather wait 
the year out? Or would you, — O seelenfroher 
Einfall! — marry me at once and come back with 
me!’’ 


“Ralph wanted me to marry Dr. Bob Russell 
six months after his death,” Leah made answer. 
“I will marry you in June, the month of roses.” 

“Any arrangement suits me,” he acquiesced 
heartily, “so that I get you. If I consulted my own 
feelings in the matter, the wedding would come 
off to-morrow, which is your birthday, by the 
way, and I have brought you something in honor 
of the occasion.” 

He took a little box from his vest pocket and 
presented it to her, and when she had thrown back 
its white velvet lid there glistened before her the 
handsomest ring she had ever beheld ; a diamond 
crescent, formed over a single white stone of 
rarest beauty and sparkling brilliancy. 

“This is exquisite,” said Leah, slipping it on her 
finger, “and it fits exactly.” 

“So will the other one.” 

“What other one?” 

“The engagement ring. It is an opal set in 
brilliants in the design of a Roslyn rose with 
petals unfolding, and it could not be finished in 
time for me to bring it. Consequently, I will not 
have the pleasure of placing it on your hand. 


146 Leave Me My Honor. 

You must put it on yourself when it arrives, — 
but ril have my turn when I slip on the wedding 
circlet — the wedding ring, Leah, think of it, which 
will bind you to me till death.” 

This man’s love was a great love. Leah ap- 
preciated it and wished in her heart that she might 
return it. 

“What made you so sure of me?” 

“The ruby you see in my scarf pin. One day^ 
Stanhope had been telling me of the way in which 
Ralph’s dearest wish had been gratified : and as I 
sat thinking of you, it flashed into my eyes, and 
looking more closely, I saw that it glowed like 
fire and sparkled, which for me always means 
success in a venture. The ruby is dull and lustre- 
less most of the time, and when disaster confronts 
me, it gets pale, almost white.” 

“How curious! Where did you get it?” Leah 
asked, with eyes intently fixed upon it, and did 
she imagine it? — for a single instant the ruby 
turned white then burned and sparkled redder 
than ever. 

“A grateful old Indian woman gave it to me,” 
the Governor replied, “for pardoning her son, 
who was lying in the jail at Columbus, when I 
was inaugurated. She said it would bring me 
luck up to my forty-sixth year. I am past forty- 
four now. She told me my fortune too, the old 
squaw did.” 

“Oh, did she? What did she tell you?” For- 
tunes were a weakness with Leah though she did 
not altogether believe in them. 

“She told me, Leah the curious, that I was a 
great chief of the nation and would marry a 


Leave Me My Honor, 147 

squaw rich and beautiful, but she was doubtful of 
there ever being any pappooses in my wigwam.” 

A peculiar expression came to Leah’s face, 
which the Governor interpreted his own way. 

“I can do without pappooses,” he said, “if I 
have you, Leah. But tell me about the young 
doctor. He took it seriously. Max tells me, when 
you refused him.” 

“Yes,” she answered, sadly. “When I told him 
that I had wired you the ‘yes’ — which was on 
Wednesday after we had come back from Camden, 
he ground his teeth in rage and swore that no 
other than himself should have me.” 

“Well, I’ll be damned ! Excuse the expression, 
my dear, I couldn’t help it.” 

Max came in just then. “Well,” he said, “have 
you two settled your business affairs? You have 
been long enough about it.” 

“Everything is settled,” the Governor answered 
pleasantly. 

“When does it come off?” 

“Early in June,” Leah answered. 

Max threw up his hands. 

“Well, Madame Smartee, you are not married 
yet, there are still the two doctors to reckon with !” 

“The two doctors? Why, I am done with Dr. 
Bob.” 

“So you are : I forgot that.” 

“And I shall settle with Dr. Traynell to-mor- 
row,” the Governor chimed in. “Leah received a 
note from him yesterday, she tells me, reminding 
her that his six months will be up to-morrow, and 
I advised her to send him a message invitine him 


148 Leave Me My Honor. 

here for three o’clock in the afternoon. I will re- 
ceive him.'’ 

“And I will be with you,” Max asserted. “1 
want to see the fun.” 

“Yes, Max,” Leah coaxed, “you be there too! 
I am nervous about that interview. He is a treach- 
erous serpent to deal with — but here comes Mabel 
in her new dinner dress which looks like a cloud 
that one sees in a dream. Isn’t she lovely. Gov- 
ernor Fourfield? You’d never think to look at her 
now that she could ever be a rollicky Bohemian of 
my own type, would you.” 

“She looks like sweet eighteen,” said the Gov- 
ernor, gallantly, “and so do you, Leah ; I wonder 
what keeps you folks so young?” 

“The mischief we indulge in,” Leah answered. 
“What I wonder at is when they’re going to 
serve dinner to-night ? They are late with it, aren’t 
they, Mabel?” 

“What’s her hurry now !” Max whispered audi- 
bly to Fourfield. “There’s something at the back 
of it.” 

A toss of her head, a tug at a fold in her dress, 
a face at her questioner, and a peal of laughter; 
and Max had his answer. 

“There she goes,” said the Governor, “showing 
all her teeth and looking so exactly like a baby that 
I must needs have her in my arms for a minute ; 
excuse me, won’t you ?” and the big man picked up 
his fiancee as though she were an infant in long 
clothes, and there is no knowing how long Love 
would have had its way, had not the Governor’s 
eyes suddenly glanced toward the windows. 
“Gosh! It just struck me what a nice snap shot 


Leave Me My Honor. 149 

we would have made for an enterprising reporter 
on a Sunday paper if the blinds had been up! 
‘The Governor of Ohio and Mrs. Wentworth of 
Philadelphia in an interesting pose.' Wouldn't 
that make a hit, eh?" 

The curtains were all down, fortunately : no re- 
porter was in the street peeping through the 
cracks; and they adjourned to dinner with easy 
minds. 


1^0 Leave Me My Honor, 


XXL 

Leah sat down to the piano and played a lively 
march of her own. The Governor turned the 
leaves as accurately as his admiration for the 
player permitted, and, at the conclusion of the 
piece, asked his host if he could oblige him with 
the ballad of Bouillabaisse. 

There was no need to ask him twice, and 
promptly the well known verses fell from his lips : 

street there is in Paris famous 
For which no rhyme our language yields — 
Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is — 
The New Street of the Little Fields; 

And here's an inn, not rich or splendid, 

But still in comfortable ease, 

The which in youth I oft attended, 

To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse. 

‘^This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is; 

A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, 

'Or hotchpotch of all sorts of hshes 
That Greenwich never could outdo; 

Green herbs, red peppers, smAts, saifern. 
Soles, onions, garlic, roach and dace; 

All these you ate at Terre's tavern 
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse," 


Leave Me My Honor^ 151 

And so on with the eight remaining stanzas, 
down to the closing apostrophe : 

'‘Welcome the wine, whatever the seal is; 

And sit you doivn and say your grace 
With thankful heart, whatever the meal is — 
Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse 

^'Bravo,” the Governor applauded, "‘yoti have re- 
membered every word, and how well you still re- 
cite, Max, my dear old comrade; but as to that 
you do well everything you undertake/* 

Thus the evening was passed agreeably among 
the friends, varied occasionally by sweet music 
and reminiscent converse. 

None of the four went to church next day. The 
Governor*s appearance there would have made his 
presence in the city known and the rest did not 
care to go without him. 

^T hate to have that Traynell business on my 
hands to-day,** the Governor said after luncheon, 
‘'but it must be done to-day. I can give no other 
time to it.** 

Punctually at three o*clock the doctor*s ring 
sounded and he came in, jaunty and smiling, ex- 
pecting to meet Leah in the parlor. Instead of her 
two men confronted him, with stem faces. 

The smile fled from his countenance when Max 
introduced the Governor, and mentioned the fact 
that he was one of the three who had played that 
night with Colonel Emmet and Mason Worrell. 
He put on a bold front, however, and asked for 
Mrs. Wentworth. 


1^2 Leave Me My Honor. 

‘'I am her representative,” the Governor blurted 
out, “and her answer to you is that she will not 
accept your proposal.” 

“She will not?” the doctor fumed. “Then I 
publish to the world that her father was a cheat !” 

“Not so fast, my dear sir ; her father was not a 
cheat, and you know it. Publish what you please, 
however, and directly after, Stanhope and I will 
come out with a press statement giving full knowl- 
edge of the whole affair over our signatures. That 
will have some weight, I fancy, and we have in our 
hands the sworn statement of the detectives Ralph 
Wentworth had with him on the day he forbade 
you his house. Dr. Traynell will then find this city 
too hot for him, I imagine.” 

Traynell was silent. A frown darkened his 
brow and his face grew livid. 

A considerable interval was allowed him for re- 
flection ; then the Governor spoke again : 

“Should you, on the contrary, reconsider your 
decision and oblige us by giving to a newspaper 
reporter Mason Worrell’s confession that he had 
tricked us into believing the Colonel a cheat, we 
are prepared to pay you a large sum of money, and 
will keep our knowledge of your private character 
to ourselves. You will also by that means escape 
the punishment you richly deserve and which 
otherwise I will mete out to you, libidinous scoun- 
drel, for your treatment of the woman who has 
done me the honor to accept my suit and will be 
my wife in a very few weeks.” 

“What!” exclaimed the doctor, galvanized by 
surprise, “Leah marry you in a few weeks ? I car 
not believe it. I am all unprepared — I must have 


Leave Me My Honor, 153 

time — time to digest it. I will give you my an- 
swer three days hence.” 

“You shall give it to us here and now,” the 
Governor retorted, fixing him with a glance of his 
eye so full of menace that he shrunk from it; 
still he tightened his lips and looked obstinate. 

“Now is the time,” Max added, “for your an- 
swer to our proposal ; and if it comes in the nega- 
tive, you know the consequences.” 

“This day is Sunday,”' the unprincipled man 
protested in a voice that was somewhat unsteady. 

“Precisely, but we cannot help that,” Max re- 
plied with decision. “In five minutes the Govern- 
or begins on you, and when he is done with you I 
shall have my turn; and after that perhaps Dr. 
Russell might care to have another kick at what’s 
left.” 

“You wouldn’t kill me, would you,” the doctor 
said with a sneer, glancing jerkily from one to 
the other of the stern faces before him, “for — for 
taking a few kisses and ” 

The Governor’s coat was oflf in an instant. 

“Put it on again,” pleaded the coward, “I ac- 
cept your proposal. How large is the sum? No 
small trifle would buy Leah from me !” 

The sum was mentioned and the oflfer accepted. 

“What about the Worrell people?” Traynell 
suggested. “Mason’s relatives might seek to 
make it hot for me. May I refer them to you?” 

“Most certainly,” the Governor replied. “Re- 
fer them to me, and I will make them see 
that simple act of justice in its true light.” 

The doctor left the house, and with a cold sweat 


154 Leave Me My Honor, 

rolling from his temples he muttered to himself 
as he went along : “So she’s going to marry the 
Governor, my beautiful Leah. He has proved one 
too many for me. With Max Stanhope and Dr. 
Bob I might have won out, but with three against 
me and one of them Joseph Fourfield, my case is 
hopeless. I throw up, this time; but you’re not 
dead yet, my loved one, — and everything comes to 
him who waits. I’ll get you under my thumb a 
second time, maybe, and if I do, I won’t take 
kisses ! Ah, no, I won’t take kisses ! I wonder if 
Russell knows that she intends to marry Four- 
field. I’ve a notion to call on him and see. I’ll 
do the humble with him, ha, ha, and get back my 
pistol ! But if ever I get a chance, my esteemed 
confrere. I’ll pay back that kicking you gave me 
with interest. I’ll wait; it’s the easiest thing in 
the world to do — when you can’t help yourself.” 

Dr. Russell jumped up when Traynell was 
ushered before him. 

“Keep your seat, Russell,” said the caller with 
brazen assurance. “To-morrow the papers will 
contain Mason Worrell’s confession about that af- 
fair out West, and, as Leah Wentworth after this 
will be nothing to me or you — she’s going to mar- 
ry Governor Fourfield — I have dropped in to sug- 
gest that we let bygones be bygones and be friend- 
ly as we were once on a time. Here’s my hand, 
will you take it and forgive the mad act of the man 
who loves Leah Wentworth; ay, loves her as 
dearly as you do ?” 

Dr. Bob took the offered hand, held it a moment 
then dropped it. “There’s no use in keeping up 
the feud,” he said, “neither of us will gain any 


Leave Me My Honor. 155 

credit by it, and here is your pistol. It is still 
loaded, and the greatest favor you could do me, 
Traynell, would be to discharge its contents into 
me and put an end to an existence that is torture 
to me without Leah.’^ 

Dr. Traynell took his pistol and balanced him- 
self on the edge of an office chair. “So you knew 
she was going to marry the Governor,’’ he haz- 
arded, refusing to take dismissal from Dr. Bob’s 
listless attitude. 

“Yes,” was the weary reply, “I knew it, and I 
wish that I could forget it.” 

“Do you think she loves the Governor ?” 

“I cannot tell ; Stanhope says she does not.” 

“Then why does she take him?” 

“God only knows.” 

“You’ve got more money than he has and could 
give her as good a position in society, if not bet- 
ter. Perhaps she thought you too young for her ; 
yet she’ll still be young at eighty. Anyhow, don’t 
be too blue about it, there are plenty of women.” 

“But none like Leah.” 

“No, none like Leah,” Traynell re-echoed with' 
a sigh. “Good-bye, I am glad we have patched 
up our difference and hope we will be friends in 
the future.” 


156 Leave Me My Honor, 


XXII. 

Shortly after the Governor’s visit to Philadel- 
phia Leah went with Max and Mabel to Columbus. 

Max took a furnished house there and all hands 
were busy. Leah and Mabel with the selection 
and superintendence of the trousseau, Joseph and 
Max with the remodeling of some living rooms 
in the spacious home of the Governor and the new 
fitting up of a special suite for the use of the 
bride. 

“Stanhope,” the Governor had said, “come with 
me to select everything, you know what she fan- 
cies, — don’t let me forget any single item.” 

And so, thanks to their combined efforts, it was 
not long ere all was in readiness, and Leah was 
invited to inspect her future abode. 

She found everything in perfect taste and ex- 
actly to her own taste. With one room she was 
more than pleased, it was the snuggery. Here 
were her favorite authors arranged in a book- 
case; the musical instruments with which she 
and the Governor were familiar ; the piano in the 
alcove, the others leaning about it in their cases, 
and the cabinet handy ; the writing table com- 
pletely furnished, from her favorite ink to the very 
latest fad she had adopted in stationery, and some 


Leave Me My Honor 157 

of the Governor’s legal cap and manuscript; a 
window garden in which also hung a bird cage ; 
easy chairs, lounges, ottomans of every descrip- 
tion, and in one corner a work table. 

The rich effect of the mahogany furniture was 
much enhanced by a creamy yellow tint of wall ; 
and the Oriental rug of yellow tones predomi- 
nating, which covered the centre of the floor, also 
of mahogany, blended in pleasing harmony. 

The window curtains and door hangings of 
yellow brocade looped back with cord and tassels, 
showed snowy lace hangings behind them, and the 
pictures were carefully chosen to match the tout 
ensemble of the room. 

“Only one thing has been forgotten,” Leah re- 
marked quietly, after she had given full vent to 
her delight and admiration. 

“And that is?” the Governor queried in a sur- 
prised tone. 

“Why, your long Dutch pipe,” Leah answered 
genially. “It should find a place near the work 
table as Max’s does near Mabel’s. How came 
you to forget that?” 

“I don’t know,” said the Governor, looking 
straight into her eyes with the steady gaze of a 
simple, earnest nature, and deducing from her 
remark her secret desire that their home life 
should resemble that of the Stanhopes. “That 
defect will soon be remedied,” he said with a 
smile. “Is there anything else, darling?” 

“Not another thing,” she asserted. “When the 
Dutch pipe is in its place the snuggery will be 
j)erfect.” 

The Governor kissed her. “Ah,” he sighed, “if 


158 Leave Me My Honor. 

to-morrow were only the wedding day ! Think of 
it, five days more to the second of June! Now 
that everything is in order here, every hour 
seems an age until you are mine, sweetheart/^ 


Leave Me My Honor. 159 


XXIII. 

For that evening they were invited to a lawn 
fete. Leah was handsomely gowned in white, 
Mabel in pink, and they made a pretty picture 
together, the centre of a select crowd eagerly 
striving to do them honor. 

The Governor’s eyes shone with pride when- 
ever they rested on his bride-to-be — of whose pop- 
ularity in that section he was now assured, and 
Stanhope’s smile was a study as with a signifi- 
cant nod he drew Leah’s attention to Ma- 
bel in the thick of a flirtation with young 
Hapnett, who had just arrived for his uncle’s 
wedding. Max liked to see her flirt, for at no 
other time was she more brilliant; and as to the 
rest he trusted her implicitly. 

He therefore devoted himself to the hostess, 
and was voted, in consequence, not only the hand- 
somest man on the lawn but the most helpful ; 
and when he announced his attention of spending 
another month in Columbus, the ladies who 
flocked about him were delighted and showed it. 

Mabel saw it all with a corner of her eye, but 
her former jealousy had now given place to a 


i6o Leave Me My Honor. 

sense of pride that her husband, her own hand- 
some Max, should be so appreciated. 

The second of June dawned beneath a sky full 
of fleecy clouds that disappeared when the white 
sun burned above. 

The city was aglow with flags and bunting 
and floral arches, through which the bridal party 
would pass. 

The wedding was solemnized at noon, while 
cannon were booming, bells ringing, whistles 
screaming. 

The officiating clergyman, an eminent divine, 
made the service very impressive, and a slight 
tremor ran through Leah’s frame when she was 
called upon with much earnestness to love, honor 
and obey the man who stood by her side ; for well 
she knew that she did not love him as a wife 
should love her husband. The thought of Ralph 
passed through her mind as the service pro- 
ceeded : there were tears in her eyes ; and it was 
with a sigh she left the altar with her new life 
partner. She had loved Ralph truly at the last: 
this man, she felt confident, would never take his 
place. 

Nor did Russell fail to get his share of her 
recollection. What was he doing on her wedding 
day? And as she mused over her own question, 
a vision of the doctor’s office floated before her 
eyes. There it was, as plain as the reality itself 
could be ; the sun was shining on Dr. Bob’s face 
as he sat at his table, and its rays were reflected 
on some object he held in his hand. Such utter 
despair was depicted on his countenance that she 


Leave Me My Honor, t6t 

shuddered. Slowly the object is raised to the 
kingly face and for a moment Leah was breath- 
less, then she saw it lowered and laid gently on 
the table, and the next moment the doctor was on 
his knees in praying attitude. 

She was in a Pullman with her new husband, 
on their way to Newport when this happened, and 
she instantly turned to the Governor, and asked 
him to send a message to Dr. Bob requesting him 
to “come to Newport.” Governor Fourfield 
smiled as he complied with her wish. “She is 
sorry for him,” he said to himself, “and she wants 
her friend back again. I hope that he will come.” 

But Dr. Bob did not come : instead of doing so, 
he wired to the Governor the one word “Impos- 
sible” and mailed Leah a sheet of note paper bear- 
ing the single sentence : “Leave me my honor.” 

Again, as she read the words there came into 
her eyes the look Ralph had seen in them on the 
day of Mabel’s conversazione, with the only dif- 
ference that its wistfulness and longing were now 
intensified. 

“I wish Max and Mabel had come with us,” she 
said to her husband on that day. “I wonder why 
they wouldn’t come when I begged them so hard 
to do so. There are so many strange faces about 
me. Send for them ; make them come, I want 
them !” 

“You shall have them, my pet,” he replied, 
speaking as to a spoiled child, “if I can fetch 
them.” 

“Oh, Joseph, they will not come; I know they 
won’t! Tell me what would you say to our leav- 
ing this place with all its brilliance and fashion. 


162 Leave Me My Honor. 

and surprising them to-morrow in their quiet 
home. Shall we? There is no snuggery in this 
big hotel, and society for us just now has no 
charms.” 

“My lovely bride, do you wish it so much?” 

“Qh, yes, Joseph, let us go to them. Mabel’s 
eyes will open wide when she sees me, and Max 
— Max will laugh at us, but I shall not mind how 
much he teases me so that I can see his dear, 
handsome old face whenever I want to.” 

So instead of spending the season at Newport, 
the Governor and his bride spent three days there 
and then returned home quietly. 

Max was reading to Mabel a descriptive para- 
graph from the Newport society column in which 
Governor Fourfield and his fair bride prominently 
figured, when Leah rushed in with the Governor 
behind her. 

To say that Max and Mabel were surprised 
would be putting it mildly, but their welcome 
was none the less loving. 

“She 'wanted Mabel and Max ” here the Gov- 
ernor imitated Leah’s tearful accents to per- 
fection, “and as Mahomet in the shape of Mr. 
and Mrs. Stanhope would not come to the moun- 
tain, I brought Leah, the mountain, to Mahomet.” 

“I couldn’t stand it away from you any longer,” 
Leah whimpered, “and he,” a smile breaking 
through her grief, “was just as anxious to leave 
Newport as I was. I had but to mention the fact 
of there being no snuggery in the big hotel, and he 
was ready to leave.” 

Max laughed heartily. “You are nothing but 
a big baby, Leah,” he said, “and what will they 


Leave Me My Honor, 163 

say about you at Newport, sneaking off in that 
fashion at the dead hour of the night !” 

''Let them say what they please, Max,’" Leah 
answered. "Fve got you, you dear, handsome 
old thing, and my sweet, sweet Mabel, and Fm 
satisfied.” 

"And haven’t you got the Governor?” Mabel 
asked, a little censure in her voice. 

"Of course I have,” Leah said proudly, "and 
isn’t he just too sweetly indulgent for anything! 
Come here, Joey, and you may give me just one. 
What do you think, Max, they’re speaking of 
him in connection with the presidential nomina- 
tion; I heard them yesterday. Meanwhile you 
two pack up your things and come home with us, 
there to stay as long as I want you.” 

"No such thing, Leah,” Max said firmly. 
"We will spend as much time as possible with you, 
but we shall stay in this house until the end of 
the month and then go back to Philadelphia.” 

"What’s the matter with you,” he found an 
opportunity for whispering to her later, "that 
you couldn’t get up a flirtation at Newport with 
some millionaire or other and so make the time 
pass rapidly? Fm ashamed of you and sorry for 
the Governor.” 

"I couldn’t help it. Max,” she returned with a 
break in her voice, "I was so homesick, I had to 
see a face I had known in Philadelphia, and I 
wish — I wish I could go to Ralph’s grave and 
weep out my heart to him.” 

"Leah, Leah, my poor girl, don’t let your hus- 
band see you in tears. He loves you so devoted- 
ly, it would break his heart to see you unhappy. 


164 Leave Me My Honor. 

Take up your life bravely. It is too late now to 
alter things.” 

To Mabel he said that night when they were 
alone, ”Leah regrets her marriage to Fourfield; 
she is very unhappy.” 

“I know it,” she answered sadly, ‘‘and we must 
try to make her forget that she is not in Phila- 
delphia by filling her life with interest and pleas- 
ure, so full, that she will not have time to think 
of her old home.” 

“Do you not see deeper than that into Leah 
Fourfield's heart?” 

Mabel sighed. “She made the Governor wire 
Dr. Bob to come to Newport from a station on 
the route,” she said, apprehensively, “and he sent 
her a letter sheet on which he had written : ‘Leave 
me my honor,' and to the Governor he wired, 
‘Impossible.’ ” 

“She has sold her birthright for a mess of pot- 
tage,” Max answered sententiously, “that’s what 
Leah, the obstinate, has done; and now let her 
make the best of it. Ralph knew what he was 
doing when he gave her to Dr. Bob ; there’s a real 
man for you ; I admire his principles. He might 
so easily have gone and made a whole lot of trou- 
ble for Fourfield, but he did not, and I honor 
him for it.” 

“What will she do when we go back without 
her?” Mabel wondered; “she cannot come with 
us.” 

“No, she cannot,” said Max, decidedly, “but 
she will make a brave effort to do so. Do not 
encourage her to come, Mabel, even on a short 
visit; there will be trouble if you do. Here we 


Leave Ale My Honor. 165 

are just over our peck of troubles and now Leah 
must start afresh!” 

'‘Poor Leah, I can’t bear to see her look so sad. 
Her lips to-day had a grieved expression. I love 
her and would do anything to make her hafipy, 
and I admire and love the Governor.” 

“Also the Governor’s nephew.” 

“Nonsense; but are you jealous of him?” 

“Desperately jealous, and you have proved 
to me that your promises are like pie crust, made 
to be broken. Not that I ever asked you to do 
anything, you took it on yourself to say it.” 

“Say what?” 

“ ‘Dear Max, now that I have your love, I prom- 
ise never to flirt with another man, let the op- 
portunity be ever so tempting but I’m glad, my 
dear, that you do flirt again.” 

“Really?” 

“You’d be dead in a week, if you didn’t; and 
besides ” 

“Well?” 

“You give me a rest.” 

“Oh, Max!” 

Leah was restless, and presently a ceaseless 
round of gayety was inaugurated, of which she 
was the head and centre, and which lasted until it 
was time for Max and Mabel to go home, when, 
finding that she could not accompany them to 
Philadelphia, she stayed at home, denied herself 
to all her new acquaintances who were still in the 
city, and moped. 

Her husband did not know what to make of it. 
He thought she was ill and called in a physician, 


i66 Leave Me My Honor, 

and the latter advised him to take her to the coun-* 

try. ^ 

The Governor owned a handsome country seat, 
and there, in close communion with nature, Leah 
found peace. 


Leave Me My Honor. 167 


XXIV. 

One night when the moonlight lay white over 
the fair earth, rivaling the brightness of day, they 
sat together in the garden under a cluster of old 
oaks casting fantastic shadows. 

In loving ecstasy the Governor watched Leah as 
she drew over her shoulders a cloak of lace and 
chiffon, the moon’s rays falling upon her lovely 
face and shining hair. 

How much had happened since first he met her. 
One by one the honors he had gained passed 
through his mind. He held every fair gift of the 
world in his hands and Leah was his wife. There 
was a smile on his face and Leah heard a snatch 
of some gay love song. 

“What are you thinking of?” she asked him. 

“Looking at you so beautiful and good, I won- 
dered how I had been so fortunate as to win you,” 
he replied. “Gratitude to God, who has so super- 
abundantly blessed me, and made my heart so 
light, overwhelms me.” 

He gathered her to him and kissed the beautiful 
face he had dreamed would rest uoon his breast. 

And she, Leah Fourfield, had found out for 
herself one secret, and it was, that with all her 
heart she now- loved the ardent young wooer who 
had been so sure of winning her. Yes, she loved 


i68 Leave Me My 'Honor. 


him. She owned it to herself that the whole hap- 
piness of her life was gone with Dr. Bob. Money, 
position, nothing was any good, nothing save love ; 
and love and she had parted on the day when she 
had sent Robert Russell, mad with anguish, from 
her. 

She repented her marriage to the Governor. 
She could not understand what had possessed her 
to marry him. How differently she would now 
act if all had to be done over again. Dr. Bob had 
passed out of her life and his pride would never 
let him come back again — never; whereas, now 
that fate had parted them, she, on the contrary, 
longed once more to be in his presence. 

When she had read the line he penned her, the 
old glamor fell upon her, the old love stirred in 
her heart. She wanted to know what he had done 
since they parted. 

There were times when she felt ready to reveal 
what was in her heart to her husband ; and again 
there were others when she shuddered lest any 
accident should disclose it to him. 

How the words on the sheet of note paper stung 
her. In fancy she could see his proud face bend- 
ing over them, and heard him repeat to himself 
the phrase that cut her off and cast her from him 
— ^Teave me my honor.’^ 

Through long nights she lay almost crazed with 
her misery, and yet, at times, athwart this misery 
came fitful gleams of dazzling light which served 
but to make the darkness that followed more in- 
tense. 

*Would the time come,” she wondered, '‘when 
he would forget her, when her face would fade 


Leave Me My Honor, 169 

from his memory and cease to torture him ? — Did 
he now remember her with contempt ?” 

She fought a brave fight with grim Despair. 
One moment it would look as though victory was 
hers ; she would say to herself that love is play : 
she would go about smiling and singing such 
snatches of song as her husband had sung in the 
moonlight, and the next moment she would break 
down with bitter cries and bitter tears. 

She spent hours watching the fair face of na- 
ture ; and among the green leaves, in the gleaming 
water, in the hearts of the flowers she saw his 
face. She lingered over books and from their 
pages Dr. Bob smiled up at her. 

She must not give way to this. She must fight 
against it, sweet as it was, aye, though it killed 
her, she would tear from her heart the image im- 
pressed there. She looked up to her husband 
with a smile. “You are happy with me here at 
Rose Terrace?” she said. 

“These hours at Rose Terrace,’’ he answered, 
“will never be forgotten by me. Nothing will ever 
be like them to me again. I may live in stately 
mansions, I may meet fair ladies, but no place will 
ever be like Rose Terrace to me, and no one — no 
one like you. You, who are so beautiful that all 
men love you, are here with me, my bride.” 

Certainly fate was good to him. 

She met him always with a smile, parted from 
him with a kiss. It seemed to him as though an 
eternity of bliss were unrolled before him. With 
the glowing warmth of the love in his heart, he 
noted not how cool was her smile, how languid 
her caress. Away from her all was blank, dull 


lyo Leave Me My Honor, 

and desolate. In the sunlight of her presence all 
was bright and fair. 

How he attended to the duties of his office was 
a mystery to him. He found himself compelled 
to rise early in the morning to get through most of 
it before he saw her. If he caught a glimpse of 
her, if he heard the sound of her voice, his pulses 
thrilled, and away flew all interest in letter, des- 
patch, document or manuscript. 

Every morning, knowing her fondness for 
flowers, he would come to this garden that he 
might get the loveliest and most fragrant for her, 
and a bouquet would be laid at her plate. At 
first she had lovingly petted the flowers and raised 
them to her face, but one day he noticed that she 
did flot do so, and concluding that he had been un- 
fortunate in his choice on this occasion he in- 
quired what her favorite flower was. 

“The Oriental hyacinth first,'' she replied, “the 
rose comes next. I love them both.” 

The next morning the bouquet waiting for her 
was composed of Oriental hyacinths, the finest she 
had ever seen. She looked from the flowers to the 
face that was watching her, and a flush of shame 
reddened her cheek, shame that she should take 
all from him and give him nothing in return. 
Her eyes dropped from his and something tender 
came into them, and henceforth' she was kinder 
to him. 

She talked to him more frequently and their 
conversations were never dull. He had lived in 
the political world, of which she knew something 
and wanted to know more, and she was interested 
in every detail he gave her. She hardly realized, 


I7I 


Leave Me My Honor, 

herself, how much time she spent in his company, 
and would have looked up in surprise had her at- 
tention been drawn thereto. 

One morning she rose earlier than usual and 
going out on the terrace for a breath of the 
sweet air, she saw him sitting at the farther end 
where the moss roses grew. His face was turned 
meditatively toward the river. 

“He has a poet's soul as well as the keen intelli- 
gence of a politician,” she thought, as she gazed at 
him. “If he lives, Ralph said once, the day will 
come when the world will do homage to him and 
he will be one of the first men in it.” 

She walked over to him, and laying her hand 
affectionately on his shoulder, asked him to go 
with her for a ramble; and away they strolled 
like two lovers, with the azured sky above them 
and the song of the birds in their ears. In a 
sunny nook overgrown with wild flowers they 
suddenly came upon a poor woman who was sit- 
ting there holding a baby in her arms. 

They paused. A light such as Fourfield had 
never seen there before spread over his wife's 
countenance. 

She leaned over the wretched woman and spoke 
to her as he had not imagined she could speak. 

A feeble wail came from the child. “Is your 
baby ill?” Leah said gently. 

“It is dying,” was the reply, and the Governor's 
heart was touched by the woebegone appearance 
of the speaker. 

Then the white hands of his wife put aside the 
old shawl and felt with kindly pity the dying 
baby’s face. “It is dying, you said ?” she asked. 


172 Leave Me My Honor. 

''Yes, lady, dying of want,” the mother re- 
peated, with a dreadful clawing of her hand. 
“Starved !” 

Leah took up the child. “You seem hardly able 
to hold the poor little thing,” she suggested. 

“I am dying of hunger myself,” answered the 
woman fiercely, “but she is all I have. My hus- 
band is dead. Give her back to me, please, and 
leave us to die.” 

“You shall not die if care can keep you alive,” 
replied Leah, and the Governor saw tears fall 
from her eyes upon the little dying face. 

“You must have food and sleep,” she con- 
tinued ; “afterward we will see what can be done.” 

The woman stared at her, and began to weep 
bitterly. The Governor thought he had never 
seen so lovely a picture as his beautiful wife in 
her dainty gown bending like an angel over the 
starving mother and child. 

“Joseph,” she said, “help me to take them to 
Rose Terrace, and send for Dr. Jerrold.” 

Joseph half led, half carried the woman, and 
Leah followed with the child. 

When the poor creature had been seated in a 
low rocker, Leah laid the infant in her arms. 
“Hope for the best,” she said, “good care may re- 
store your baby. Here, drink this milk,” she 
added, offering her a glass which the Governor 
had brought her, “and dry your tears, the doctor 
will soon be with us.” 

Even as she spoke Dr. Jerrold came up the ter- 
race and took the milk from the woman, for she 
was unable to swallow it. 

One glance at the baby and he shook his head ; 


Leave Me My Honor. 173 

then, after carefully examining the mother: 
'‘Too late,” he whispered to the Governor ; “let her 
have milk, but only enough to moisten her lips 
and occasionally a drop of wine;” and he had 
scarcely given these instructions when the baby 
breathed its last. He took it from the arms of 
its mother, laid it gently on a garden seat, and 
pressed down its eyelids, Leah looking on with 
tears in her eyes. “The mother will survive it 
but a few hours,” he said to her; “do not at- 
tempt to move her into the house. Let her die 
out here in the sunlight. I will come again in an 
hour.” 

When he returned, the poor creature’s woes 
were over; and ere long she was laid to rest 
with her child, not in a pauper’s grave but in a 
corner of the Governor’s own ground. 

In September they went back to the city, and 
in a short time Leah’s princely hospitality and 
lavish patronage of sports had won her a reputa- 
tion equaled only by that of her personal loveli- 
ness and the exquisite taste of her toilette. 


174 Leave Me My Honor. 


XXV. 

‘‘Max,” said Mabel, one day in January, “I am 
going to tell you a secret.” 

“Fire away,” said Max, laconically. 

“Dr. Bob told me to tell you.” 

“He did, eh ? What had he to do with it ?” 

“Oh, he made sure that it was a fact, that is 
all.” 

“A fact? What fact? What are you talking 
about anyway ?” 

“I am trying to tell you, Max, that at last — at 
last our union is being blessed and Fm so happy.” 

Max jumped from his chair. “What!” he ex- 
claimed. 

“Yes,” said Mabel, “he is sure of it and told me 
tc tell you — and won’t we be happy. Max, with 
a dear little daughter.” 

“Daughter? Did the doctor say that, too?” 

“No, it was the fortune-teller that Leah and I 
went to consult before Ralph died. She told me 
I was to have a daughter.” 

“Well, I’ll be switched ! After all these years ! 
— Come here, let me kiss you,” and he showed 
her how happy she had made him. “Did the 
fortune-teller tell Leah anything like that?” he 
continued. 

“I think not,” Mabel answered, “but she told 


Leave Me My Honor. 175 

her that she would be wed three times before she 
was forty.’’ 

'That’s where she fooled herself,” said Max 
with conviction. “Fourfield hasn’t got heart dis- 
ease, and Leah, great flirt though she is, does not 
believe in divorces. But, Mabel, little woman, 
now I must take great care of you; no more 
dancing and late hours this winter. You agree 
with me, don’t you? You will be careful, for my 
sake ?” 

“Yes, Max, and for mine — and the little girl’s.” 

Seven months had passed since Leah had mar- 
ried Governor Fourfield. 

They were together one morning in their pretty 
breakfast room when the mail was brought in. 

The Governor waded through a mass of cor- 
respondence. “A letter from Stanhope,” he said 
when he came to it. He opened it and two min- 
utes afterward burst into a loud laugh and laid 
the letter before Leah. “Read that news,” he 
said, pointing out a paragraph, “and tell me what 
you think of it.” 

“The Stork — Dr. Bob sure — not to travel,” she 
read audibly while going over the rest for herself. 

“Oh, Joseph,” she said, “how happy Mabel will 
be ! The fortune-teller prophesied that a daughter 
would come to her; a dear little doll of a girl I 
am sure she will be. Why, she’ll just go crazy 
over her and so will 1. That she is not to travel 
means that she will not visit us this winter; but 
we, Joseph, must go and see the little girl when 
she comes. Let’s see,” she added, counting on 
her fingers, “it will be June ; and this year instead 


176 Leave Me My 'Honor. 

of going to Newport or Rose Terrace, we’ll go to 
Philadelphia and from there, if Mabel is strong 
enough, to Atlantic City. You’ll not be able to 
tear me away from that little girl in a hurry when 
once I have her in my arms. And,” she mur- 
mured to herself, '‘why couldn’t a little girl come 
to me also?” 

The letter she received by the next post from 
Mabel confirmed the news and gave fuller partic- 
ulars. She and Max were so happy about it. 
He was as careful over her "as an old hen over a 
young pullet,” as she put it. 

"I shall begin at once with her wardrobe,” she 
wrote, "hand embroidered everything must be, 
you know; and as Max will not allow me to go 
out much, I shall do all the Henriettas myself. 
You must come here in June, Leah, I couldn’f 
possibly do without you then. To think — ^to 
think of having a little daughter at last, and 
when she grows up won’t I be proud of her? 
And maybe, sometimes, I will lend her to you. 
I wonder whom she will resemble ? Max, I hope ; 
he is as handsome as ever, Leah, and getting fat.” 

Leah, too, as the months went by, embroidered 
pretty things for the expected little lady, and dur- 
ing the hours she spent alone over the pleasant 
task, what more natural than that her thoughts 
should frequently wander to Philadelphia, to the 
Stanhopes, and to Dr. Russell, even if the Quaker 
City had not been suggested to her mind by an 
occasional visitor whose acquaintance she had 
first made there, young Hapnett, her nephew by 
marriage. 

The Governor was proud of his nephew and 


Leave Me My Honor, 177 

pleased at the close friendship that had grown 
between Leah and him. Often at twilight he 
would come in quietly to the snuggery when the 
two were trying over a new tune, or a new step 
in dancing, or talking over a new book or play, 
and they would not be aware of his presence 
until he would make it known by a “bravo” or the 
clapping of his hands in applause. 

One evening Leah seated herself on a low stool 
before the garden window; her knees were en- 
circled in her arms and her head leaned against 
the cushioned sides of an armchair. She was 
alone with young Hapnett, and thanks to the 
storm that raged outside, it had been easy for the 
Governor to make his usual entrance into the cozy 
apartment, unnoticed by either of its occupants. 

A shadowy smile flitted about his lips as he 
noted her attitude, and he wondered what had 
caused that nervous quivering of her underlip 
which a gleam of the dying twilight revealed to 
him, and which in her was ever a mark of inward 
agitation. Presently he heard in the semi-dark- 
ness : — 

“You saw them out driving together, you say, 
Willie?” 

“Yes, at the Green street entrance of Fair- 
mount Park.” 

“Did he look happy?” 

“How could he help it with that girl beside 
him?” 

“Is she very beautiful?” 

“Very.” 

“Prettier than Mabel Stanhope?” 


178 Leave Me My Honor, 

'Well — no, not to say prettier exactly; a dif- 
ferent style altogether.” 

“Something on my order?” 

“Not at all.” 

“Describe her to me.” 

“Well — she’s tall for one thing, and swings 
herself rhythmically. — she has an admirable 
walk, the men stand in line on Chestnut street to 
see her go by — small feet, high-arched and 
springy ; white hands, but the fingers are a trifle 
too thick, and the nails a little too broad.” 

“You must have examined her hands very 
closely.” 

“I have. I spent quite a few evenings with her 
during my stay in Philadelphia.” 

“Go on with the description.” 

“Why — where did I leave off?” 

“With her hands.” 

“Oh, yes. Her arms are pretty and plump; 
they felt like velvet against my cheek ” 

“Go on, don’t stop.” 

“And her neck when she is in full dress would 
charm the heart of a — of anything, don’t you 
know.” 

“What about her face?” 

“Her face is all that it should be, oval in con- 
tour, with brown velvet eyes, red ruby lips, cheeks 
like the rose — which go into dimples when she 
gives you her heavenly smile. Her chin is very 
pretty and she holds it at the proper angle, and 
her eyelashes are long and thick. I noticed them 
particularly when her head was on my — oh, I am 
intimate with her brother, you know, the bota- 
nist, who—” 


179 


Leave Me My Honor. 

''What on earth has her brother, the botanist, 
to do with her dimples and ruby lips; do pro- 
ceed, Willie ; how about her hair V’ 

“Oh, that's brown with red streaks through it, 
and ever so curly." 

“She is a handsomer woman than I am, then ?" 

“What are you talking about !" 

“Isn’t she?" 

“No more to be compared to you than — than 
chalk to cheese; but she’s very pretty and I’ve 
taken quite a fancy to her. Now, if only that ras- 
cally Dr. Bob doesn’t cut me out." 

“Do you think he loves her?" 

“Who, Dr. Bob ? How could he help it ! She’s 
the kind of a girl that winds herself right about 
you, and you feel in a moment that you haven’t 
lived before you saw her, and that you 'can’t do 
without her, nohow,’ see?" 

“You didn’t feel that way about Mabel, I sup- 
pose ?’’ 

“No, I did not. With her it was a case of do 
and dare ; go through fire and water to serve her ; 
fight for her to win her. I didn’t see her this 
trip; she keeps herself at home since she was 
married over again to the same man she had 
before. She was a fool, I think." 

“In what way?" 

“Oh, in getting married so soon again and to 
the same old chestnut she had before. She might 
have had a grand career as a grass widow ; and 
what on earth did she get a divorce for if she 
wanted to go right back to the same fellow again ? 
That was a funny scheme ! — Yes, I think Dr. Bob 
loves her. He was mighty careful over her at 


i8o Leave Me My Honor, 

any rate; tucked the lap robe round her, pulled 
her collar up behind, and the rest of it ; and she sat 
there beside him, nodding right and left to the 
people she knew — mostly fellows — and smiling at 
him. He's a good looking man, that doctor is; 
wish I were half as handsome." 

“You are a pretty boy, Willie." 

“Glad you think so, — that's just it, I'm a boy, 
he is a man. She is older than I am, you know." 

“Is she older than I am?" 

“How old are you?" 

“Nearly thirty-seven." 

“Get out ! Why, you look to be twenty. That's 
what she is and I'm three months younger, — and, 
by the way she looked at him and smiled" — 
here came a deep sigh — “I believe it is a go with 
her, and they will be married." 

Leah drew a long breath, but there was more 
bitterness in her sigh than in Willie's. 

“Oh, well," he said resignedly, after a short 
pause, “I suppose I will have to forget her as I 
have done so many girls who married other fel- 
lows. Get up and let's try that new waltz to- 
gether, the one that is danced backward and for- 
ward like a pendulum. You're a daisy to waltz 
with. Aunt Leah." 

She got up and went once around the room 
with him in the dark; then somebody separated 
them and she was whirled about in the arms of 
her husband in the London way of waltzing, al- 
ways to the right, never reversing, until Leah 
grew dizzy, and Willie meanwhile touched a but- 
ton and there was light. “How long have you 
been here. Uncle Joseph ?" he asked. 


Leave Me My Honor. i8i 

''Ever since Dr. Russell went driving with your 
girl by the Green street entrance to Fairmount 
Park/' he answered, smiling. “That very same 
doctor wanted my wife badly, but I showed him 
what I could do with the boxing gloves. He 
gave her up to me quietly." 

“What do you mean, Joseph?" Leah asked 
breathlessly. 

“Only that I had to prove to the doctor be- 
yond a doubt that I was a better man than he 
before he would let me have you. Ralph had 
given you to him, he kept repeating, and no man 
should take you from him. I did, however, and 
you're mine to have and to hold till death do us 
part." 


i 82 Leave Me My Honor. 


XXVI. 

No rest did Leah find on her pillow that nighty 
and no sleep either until break of day. 

Not even the hush that followed the storm out- 
side, or the peaceful calm of her bedchamber, 
could at first coax “Nature's sweet restorer" to 
her couch. 

And when at length she did slumber at day- 
light she dreamed that she had gone to Rose 
Terrace with the girl with the brown velvet eyes 
and the heavenly smile, had made her lie down on 
the same garden seat where had lain the little 
dead baby, and that she had beaten her across 
the face with a cane as she had done Mason Wor- 
rell ; that her husband looked on with a malicious 
smile an kept Dr. Bob from interfering by 
threatening him with his right fist encased in a 
boxing glove. 

No words could tell Leah's heartache and 
misery. She used every effort to conceal it and 
maintain her dignity, but the bow that is never un- 
strung cannot stand the tension forever, and now 
and again a wild longing would possess her to 
take wings and fly away, anywhere, away from the 
social whirl and its hollow joys. 

And the days passed on, each a little longer, a 
little colder than its predecessor. 


Leave Me My Honor. 183 

No sweet temper either did the Governor’s 
lady display whenever she succumbed to her in- 
cessant strain ; yet not an unkind word fell from 
her husband’s lips. She was ill and he must be 
patient with her, although he felt, in truth, not a 
little puzzled over her alternate fits of peevish- 
ness and apparent remorse. 

Something was wrong; what, he could not 
tell ; yet, in spite of all, when the noon sun looked 
in upon her troubled, feverish morning sleep, 
it always lighted up the form of the Governor 
sitting beside her bed, waiting her awakening. 
And her conscience smote her when she opened 
her eyes and found him there, and she would be 
to him all that was loving and kind. Then again 
she would grow impatient of the /‘still, small 
voice” within her breast, and she wished she 
could die. There would be only one to mourn 
for her anyway, she said to herself, the Governor. 
Yet the thought that such a fate might be in store 
for him was a dagger in her heart. 

They would take her away as they had taken 
Ralph, and he would wander all day about this 
big house alone and at night sit in the snuggery 
without her. And he would suffer the pangs she 
went through after Ralph’s death. Poor Ralph ! 
She had been the one only woman for him as she 
was for the Governor. His had been the ideal 
love, but not the kind of love for which she had 
been overly grateful. His devotion made her 
too sure ; only at the last, when she had feared to 
lose it, had she appreciated its worth. Since she 
had lost Ralph she had thought her heart was 
dead and peace her portion; but now, it lived 


184 Leave Me My Honor. 

again, and its life was only hopeless torture, mis- 
ery, pain. Banished forever was the resignation 
she had attained, the poor mite of content which 
she believed was happiness. She had thrown 
away all that made life worth anything. 

An intolerable sense of fatigue pervaded her 
entire being one afternoon as she sat with her 
husband. Even the passion which had so tor- 
mented her had lost its sting. Rain had fallen 
in the earlier day and the sunshine sparkled in the 
drops of moisture on every roof and tree. In- 
stinctively she turned to her husband; she felt 
glad that she was safe with him, not dead as she 
had longed to be. 

Tears rushed into the eyes of the weary man 
before her. He lifted up her head and pressed 
it closely to him, and kissed her on her forehead. 

She lay still and marveled at the terror and 
anguish in his sympathetic eyes. 

And it was she was the cause of it all ! But no, 
never more! Never again must her patient Joe 
suffer such pain through her hateful wayward- 
ness; she would stifle it within her breast, and 
learn to love him as she had learned to love 
Ralph. — But who was that in the room behind 
her : she knew that step ; could it be, was it really 
Dr. Bob? 

It was, and the next moment he stood before 
her with a glass in his hand. “You are to drink 
this,’" he said, “and go to sleep. I have been here 
with you for three weeks, and you have never 
once said ‘how do you do’ to me.” 

“Have I been ill?” she asked. 

“Very ill,” he replied, “of a nasty fever; and if 


Leave Me My Honor. 185 

you’re obedient and go to sleep directly, you will 
get well. If, on the contrary, you worry over the 
matter that has been troubling you, I must take 
you back to Philadelphia with me, to Mount Mo- 
riah, and leave you there.'' 

“Lay me down on the bed," she said, addressing 
her husband, “and don't leave me. I will sleep if 
vou hold my hand." 

For five hours she slept, and neither her hus- 
band nor the doctor left her bedside. 

“If she is in her right mind when she comes 
out of this sleep," the physician whispered, “she 
is saved. If not, we must prepare for the worst. 
I have done all that man can do ; the rest is with 
God." 

There they sat hour after hour, those two men 
who loved Leah so fondly, watching the marble 
face on the pillow, which to the husband seemed 
gray and drawn, but to the doctor shortly began 
to give hopeful indications. 

One thin blue-veined hand was lying on the 
coverlid, the other was clasped in that of the 
Governor's, as it had been ever since he laid her 
down. 

At the end of the fifth hour, the eyelids flut- 
tered, then opened, to meet the eyes of Dr. Bob 
full of intense scrutiny. “Do you know me?" 
he asked. 

“Yes," Leah answered, “is Ralph better?" 

“Ralph is perfectly well and you must go to 
sleep again." 

“He will not die, then ?" 

“Not this time," said the doctor, and held his 


i86 Leave Me My Honor, 

hand over her eyes, compelling them to close 
again. 

The two watchers exchanged looks and con- 
tinued their vigil for another long hour. Sud- 
denly Dr. Russell stepped out of sight and mo- 
tioned the Governor to bend over his wife. 

Her eyes slowly reopened and she saw the face 
of her husband. ''Joseph, she said, "is it still 
raining?” 

“No, my darling,” he replied, “it will be a clear 
night.” 

“Morning, you mean.” 

“Morning, then.” 

“Don’t let me oversleep myself. I want to see 
Willie off.” 

“Are you still very sleepy?” 

“Yes, and so tired ; but why are you sitting up 
so late? Are you ill or anything? You look so 
white and worried.” 

“You have been ill, Leah.” 

“I?” 

“Yes, for nearly five weeks.” 

“Is Dr. Bob here, or did I dream it?” 

“He is here to answer for himself,” said the 
doctor, returning to the bedside, “and has been 
for three weeks pouring medicine into your lips 
night and day, and now if you will take a few 
spoonfuls of broth from the nurse, I will leave 
you, to take a little rest, and the Governor shall 
come with me. We need it.” 

What a glorious light came into the Governor’s 
eyes as he heard the doctor’s last words. She 
was safe, else he would never have left her and 
ordered nim away. 


Leave Me My Honor. 187 

He kissed the little hand he still clasped, and 
left the room, with the doctor, after the nurse had 
given Leah the broth and she had taken it with 
apparent relish. 

In his own room the Governor threw himself 
on his knees and thanked God for the life of Leah, 
after which he laid himself down and slept for 
eight hours. 

Not so with Dr. Bob. He flung himself across 
the bed in a guest chamber and spent a couple of 
hours in painful unrest, until the nurse reported 
to him the patient was sleeping soundly, health- 
ily. He crept into the sick room to make sure of 
the fact, returned, looked up to God, undressed 
and went to bed. His mind was at last easy: 
Leah would get well. _ He slept. 


i88 


Leave Me My Honor. 


XXVII. 

In the next few days, in answer to her ques- 
tions, the Governor explained to his dear con- 
valescent how, on the morning after the great 
storm, when he had gone in to kiss her good-bye 
before he went out — as he usually did whenever 
she failed to make her appearance at the break- 
fast table — he had found her sitting up in bed and 
muttering about the girl with the brown velvet 
eyes Willie had been speaking about, and of Ma- 
son Worrell in connection with her, and of Rose 
Terrace and the little dead baby. This, to him, 
unintelligible jumble, had been followed by some 
wild threats and the mention of Dr. Bob and box- 
ing gloves. ‘^After that,’’ he said, *‘you quieted 
down somewhat, then began to moan and cry 
about the pain in your heart, and when that was 
over, you put on airs. Your pride and dignity 
must be maintained at any cost, you kept repeat- 
ing until the sharp pains racked you and you 
screamed in agony. The 'east winds and their 
moisture’ seemed to distress you terribly at this 
time, though the temperature of your room was 
at summer heat. 

'‘Days passed and I was at my wits’ end to 
know what to do ; for you were getting worse in- 
stead of better all the time, although I had the 


Leave Me My Honor, 189 

best doctors in the city holding consultations over 
you, and our old family physician spent nearly 
all of his time beside you. At last, one day he said 
to me, ‘There is a specialist in Philadelphia ;vho 
is fast becoming world-known for the success he 
has in the treatment of fevers. You must send 
for him.’ ‘Who is he?’ I inquired. ‘Dr. Robert 
Russell,’ he replied. My heart leaped, Leah. 
Surely here was the man who would cure you! 
I sent for him and he came. When he entered 
your room, you happened to have just gone 
through a sullen fit of temper, and were begging 
me to forgive your peevishness ; and oh, Leah, 
how flushed was your face and how wild your 
eyes I 

“ ‘Lay her down,’ said Dr. Bob, when he had 
examined your pulse and felt your forehead; 
and as I followed his order you poured forth a 
veritable deluge of verbiage about a passion for 
which you hated yourself and which was stronger 
than you and was making you so unhappy. You 
raved a good bit about that passion for the next 
ten days, though you never told us what it was, 
but on the eleventh day after the doctor’s arrival 
you came to your right mind again. For a little 
while you seemed to know that I was sitting be- 
side your bed watching you, and you were so 
sweet and affectionate! 

“But presently you grew worse again and many 
times you cut my heart with the words, T want to 
die!’ Then your life with Ralph and your grief 
for his loss became the subject of your ramblings. 
Then came the passion again that tormented you 
so, and this, oh, God be praised, was followed by 


190 Leave Me My Honor. 

a lull in your delirium and you were glad that 
you were not dead, not out there where the tem- 
pest could beat on your grave, as you said, but 
here in my arms, safe with me. 

'Then we lifted you out of bed, and placed 
you in the chair by the window, and when you 
first recognized Dr. Russell, you thought you 
were in your old home and he was in attendance 
on Ralph. And now, my darling, you are on the 
road to recovery and will soon be my own bright 
Leah again. The doctor will be with us an- 
other week ; and then if you have had no relapse 
in the meantime, he will leave us. I owe him 
your life, Leah, how can I repay him ?’* 

"By never mentioning the matter again,” said 
Dr. Bob, who had stepped into the sick room in 
time to hear the last sentence. "I promised you 
once that I would be your friend and hers. And 
now, Mrs. Fourfield, if you are not too tired and 
care to hear it, I will read you a budget of Phila- 
delphia news I have just received.” 

"Oh, no, doctor, I am not too tired. Let us 
have all the news from home — from Philadel- 
phia.” 

The Governor looked grieved, but patted her 
Hand gently, as he said to his guest, "Somehow she 
has never learned to look on this as her home; 
why, I cannot say.” 

"Home is where the heart is,” thought Dr. 
Bob, but he did not say so, and chided himself 
the next moment for harboring the sentiment. 
He opened a letter and began to read from it : 

" ‘My wife and I,’ this is from Max, as you mav 
guess, ‘are rejoiced to hear of Leah’s progress 


Leave Me My Honor. 191 

toward recovery, and I am having a serious time 
with her, she longs so to be with her friend, and I 
candidly believe that if I didn’t keep constant 
watch and guard over her, she would be off by 
the first train she could catch.’ ” 

“My poor Mabel,” Leah sighed, “yes, I know 
that she longs for me as I long for her. Nothing 
shall keep me away from her in June, Joseph, do 
you hear me?” 

“Yes, I hear you, my darling, and you shall go 
to Philadelphia in June. Won’t you proceed, 
doctor ?” 

“ 'Dr. Traynell has been here several times to 
get more accurate news of Leah’s condition than 
the papers give, and when she was so very low, 
he cried like a baby about her. He seems a 
changed man, somehow, gentler, more humble.’ — 
He does seem changed. Came to me not long 
after you and I had the boxing bout, apologized 
and asked for my friendship. It sometimes does 
a fellow like him a heap of good to get a good 
kicking. Yet I do not altogether trust him: if 
the opportunity for mischief comes his way, he’ll 
take it, of that I am certain.” 

“You may be doing him an injustice,” Leah 
gently remonstrated, “perhaps he is truly repent- 
ant. I received a letter from him while at Rose 
Terrace in which he begged m3; forgiveness and 
asked for a reconciliation. Joseph advised me to 
answer it kindly, which I did; but I can never 
forget that hour with him in Mabel’s parlor. For 
many nights after that I dreamed of snakes, and 
they were always coiled about my limbs and body, 
pressing oh, so heavily on my chest, licking my 


192 Leave Me My Honor, 

lips with their forked tongues. Is there anything 
more in your letter?” 

“ ‘Young Hapnett is here again with his aunt 
Sophie and may frequently be seen at social gath- 
erings with Miss Dora Gracie, the lady with 
whom you were reported to be engaged.' ” Here 
the doctor threw back his head and laughed. 
“Engaged to Dora Gracie, indeed !” he ejaculated. 
“Oh, no, she is not my style of a woman at all.” 

“But she went driving with you. Willie Hap- 
nett told us about it the night before my wife was 
taken sick,” said the Governor. 

“And now he spends much of his time with 
Dora,” said the doctor, smiling. “Miss Gracie is 
a very nice young lady, of good parentage and 
good looking. Hapnett might do worse than 
marry her.” 

“But you would not marry her?” quizzed the 
Governor. 

“Certainly not,” the doctor returned, “she 
wouldn’t suit me. As I told you, she is not my 
style of a woman at all.” 

Leah made rapid strides toward convalescence 
and was able to sit up a few hours in the snug- 
gerv after she had been carried there. 

How glad she was to get back to the pretty 
room once more. There were geraniums and 
lilies blooming in the window garden. The hya- 
cinth bulbs were sprouting and a Chinese vine 
was climbing over all. The canary, asleep oh his 
perch, looked bushy and fat, her favorite Angora 
was purring on the softest cushion, and Don, her 
greyhound, stood ready to welcome her, and 


Leave Me My Honor, 193 

barked for joy when she touched his nose with her 
hand. 

The next morning when the doctor came to bid 
her good-bye, she was quite bright, and he felt 
confident there was no longer danger of a relapse ; 
nevertheless, he cautioned her to be careful. 

Leah held his hand for a long time in hers 
at parting, and tears which she could not re- 
strain fell upon it. She released it at last with 
a heartfelt “God bless you,” and he departed with 
the Governor. 

What these weeks had been to him God and his 
own heart knew. 


194 Leave Me My Honor. 


XXVIII. 

Max had been very busy of late. He had 
once told Ralph that he would gladly give one- 
half of what he owned to the poor if he could be 
Mabel's chosen lover for one day and night; he 
was as good as his word, and even now, within 
but a few months of the realization of his wish, 
he was sparing no expense in the erection of a 
free hospital for poor children. 

As to Mabel, she was in good health and spirits, 
and longing for the time to come when she could 
once more clasp Leah in her arms, and perhaps, 
if all went well, show her the little daughter; 
when, suddenly, one bright afternoon in the first 
week of June, a piece of news reached Max which 
fairly stunned him with the force of a thunder- 
bolt. 

Governor Fourfield had been killed — an ex- 
plosion had taken place at the Powder Works two 
miles north of the city at 10.30 a. m. of that day, 
killing the Governor and five of his friends who 
had gone there with him to visit the works, as 
well as three laborers. 

The bodies of the victims were badly mutilated, 
beyond recognition almost; and the Governor, 
who had left Leah alive and well that morning, 
chatting gaily with his friends on their way to the 


Leave. Me My^ Honou 195 

station, had been brought home to her a mangled 
corpse. 

Max ran off to Dr. Russell’s and found him 
studying in his office, little dreaming of the shock- 
iig news which was even then on its way to him 
in the shape of a telegram, and was handed to him 
a few minutes after Max’s arrival. 

He was appalled when Max blurted out in 
gasps: “Governor Fourfield is dead — killed by 
an explosion at the powder works — Mabel, how 
shall I tell Mabel? — and Leah! Who will go 
to Leah ? — Which one of us will go to Leah ?” 

“I will,” said the doctor instantly. “Your place 
is right here with your wife, — and keep the news 
from her as long as you possibly can; I fear it 
will have a bad effect upon her. I felt so desir- 
ous to be with her when the time comes. But 
she is in God’s hands, and if I am not back in 
time, call in Dr. Traynell ; it will be safe to trust 
him with the case. Why, here he is now.” The 
door had opened and Dr. Traynell walked in. 

“What are you two looking so solemn about?” 
he inquired, seeing their disturbed faces. 

“Governor Fourfield is dead,” said Dr. Bob 
sadly. 

Dr. Traynell gasped for breath. “Where? 
When?” 

“He was killed at some powder works two miles 
from his residence,” answered Max, “killed in- 
stantly and mutilated so as to be hardly recogni- 
zable; and Dr. Bob is preparing to start for 
Columbus at once.” 

And sure enough the doctor was even then 
busily packing a valise while giving orders to 


196 Leave Me My Honor, 

his assistant to be carried out during his absence. 

“And now,” he concluded, turning to Dr. 
Traynell, “you have dropped in most opportune- 
ly ; you will drive me to the depot, won’t you, so 
that I may board the next train West? I have 
not a moment to lose. Good-bye, Stanhope. I 
will return in time if possible, and do you keep the 
news from your wife as long as ever you can.” 

Dr. Traynell had already taken up the valise 
and was hurrying off to his carriage with it. 

They drove at full speed, reached the depot 
just in time to catch the express, and Dr. Russell 
was off on his sad errand. 

Dr. Traynell had now time to digest the news 
he had heard, as he slowly returned to his resi- 
dence. Fourfield dead ; Leah again a widow ; and 
Dr. Bob hurrying to her. Would she turn to him 
now? Would she come back to Philadelphia to 
live, or would she stay in the western city? She 
would come back here, he felt sure; and he. 
Dr. Traynell, would make one more effort to win 
her, if not by fair means, then by foul. He 
hugged himself to think that he had written her 
that humble letter which had brought from her a 
kind reply, and that he had pocketed his pride 
and become reconciled with Dr. Bob and Max 
Stanhope, her friends. He would visit the Stan- 
hopes often, ingratiate himself still deeper in their 
confidence, and, if luck went with him, would 
bring their offspring into the world. There h^ 
would get daily news of Leah, or, better still, 
meet her, perhaps. 

He walked from room to room of his old- 
fashioned house and fancied himself there with 


197 


Leave Me My Honor. 

Leah, Leah the beautiful, whom neither time nor 
absence could drive from his heart. He felt no 
sorrow for the dreadful blow that had befallen 
her ; she was free again ; what cared he if it was 
Death that had severed the bonds? 

Leah was still so dazed by her sudden be- 
reavement that she showed no surprise at the ar- 
rival of Dr. Russell and at once unburdened her- 
self of her sorrow to him : “He left me/’ she said, 
“with kind words on his lips, and now he lies 
there in that casket and they will not even let me 
kiss him once more. They say I must not see 
him, but I will see him, I must see him just 
once more ; help me, doctor, won’t you help me ! 
He appeared to me last night in my dream, with 
Ralph, and he kissed me and wept over me. T 
am here, Leah,’ he said, ‘take your last look of 
me, but do not, do not look on me dead!’ But 
I must look, I must see my dear one once more; 
oh, just once more, to kiss him and ask him to 
forgive me. He loved me, oh, how he loved me ! 
Better than Ralph, even; and I did not try half 
hard enough to love him. We were so happy this 
spring; wherever we went or whatever we did, 
we were always together; our minds seemed to 
think in unison, we were so wrapped up in each 
other ; and now he is there dead, and never again 
will I see the face that brightened at my coming, 
the dear eyes that held nothing but kindness and 
love. I must see him. Dr. Bob, just once more 
kiss his lips and hold his hand !” 


198 Leave Me My Honor. 


XXIX. 

Leah would not go with Dr. Bob when he went 
back to Philadelphia on Sunday after the funeral. 

His first call, on arriving, was at the Stanhope 
mansion; and there he found that Mabel knew 
nothing yet of Leah’s great trial ; on the contrary, 
she was expecting every day to see her, and 
wondered at her long delay. 

She complained to him of her inability to sleep 
the night before, “and 1 had such a strange dream 
toward morning, when I did drop off for a few 
minutes,” she said. “It was about Ralph. I saw 
him coming toward me holding in his hand the 
picture of a large old-fashioned house in front 
of which all I could see was a marble building 
with large pillars ; he pointed to a space between 
two windows on the wall of this house and sighed 
oh, so heavily, three times, ‘Leah, Leah, Leah,’ 
and his face was so full of grief ! Could Leah be 
in any trouble, doctor, think you?” 

The doctor had not sufficient courage to an- 
swer, but turned his back to her, so as to conceal 
his emotion, and her husband drew her attention 
to something else. 

About twelve that night Dr. Bob was again 
with her, and Mabel was fighting the battle of 
life and death. Bravely she fought it, and when 


199 


Leave Me My Honor. 

the morning sunlight streamed into the room, it 
showed her lying quietly asleep, and by her side 
lay a great big boy. 

She was not informed of the sex of the child 
until it was nearly twenty-four hours old, and 
then when Max told her with pride in his voice 
that she had borne him a son, her astonishment 
was ludicrous. “Oh,” she said, “how disappoint- 
ed Leah will be ! She was always so very fond of 
little dolls of girls, she will never be satisfied 
with that great fellow. How I love him, and how 
proud you are. Max. I could hear it in your 
voice what satisfaction it gave you to have a son. 
Yet you never once said to me you wanted a boy !” 

“You were so dead sure of a daughter, you 
know, Mabel,” Max made answer with a smile 
curling his lips ; “you put your faith in fortune- 
tellers, and now see what they have done for you ; 
but you seem to be as well satisfied as I am that 
they made a mistake.” 

“I am just as proud of him as you are. Max. 
I only wanted a daughter for Leah’s sake. Im- 
agine me going about leaning on the arm of my 
son when he’s a grown-up man! How I love 
him. Max, and how good God is to let us taste 
this sweet joy! I am so happy. Max, and if Leah 
were here, I wouldn’t have a wish unfulfilled. 
What can be keeping her? Tell me, Max, is she 
in trouble of any kind or ill ? Dr. Bob gets pale 
and trembles when I mention her name; tell me, 
is anything wrong with my Leah?” 

“Yes, dear,” said Max, judging it well to tell 
her a little, “there is something wrone with her, 
something is keeping her away from you now, 


200 Leave Me My Honor. 

but she ^n\\ be with you as soon as she can, and 
you must have patience and ask no more questions 
for a few days at least. She is well, and will be 
with you soon ; let that satisfy you.'^ 

At Max's request, Dr. Bob wired Leah at once 
of the birth of the child and received the reply: 
“Will be with you soon." 

Two days after the Governor's funeral, his 
widow lingered by his grave and prayed and wept 
until the evening shadows began to fall, and 
thus missed getting Dr. Bob's telegram until late 
in the evening. 

“I must go to her at once," she said to old 
George, to whom she had imparted the news, 
“and you must take m'e to the station to catch 
the earliest train, George, and I shall take no one 
with me, not even my maid. I will reach Phila- 
delphia some time to-morrow afternoon and can 
drive alone to my old honTe. My servants there will 
take care of me. The trunks you can ship when 
I send for them and the maid can come with 
them. This house will be left in your charge 
until I return, which will be very soon." 

So she had gone, and when she got off the 
train in Philadelphia, she almost fell into the arms 
of Dr. Traynell, who was seeing a friend off in 
the car ahead. 

“Leah!" he ejaculated, “and all alone. Come 
with me to my carriage and I will drive you to 
the Stanhopes. That's about where you are bound 
for, isn't it?" 

“Not at once," said Leah. “I must stop off 
at my own home first, for a few moments, to re- 
move the stains of travel, and then I will hasten 


Leave Me My Honor. 201 

to my dear Mabel, who is so happy while I am so 
miserable.” 

She wept silently behind her crepe veil, and 
when the doctor had helped her into the carriage 
and taken a seat beside her, she sobbed audibly. 

“I will draw the curtain,” he said, “and you 
may weep yourself out, you poor thing. You 
have my full sympathy in your sad, sad trouble, 
believe me!” 

To the coachman he gave the sign with which 
the latter was evidently familiar; then he drew 
a flask from his pocket, and the next minute Leah 
was lying back in her seat, unconscious, while 
the doctor leaned well out of the carriage to in- 
hale the fresh air. 

The coachman, in accordance with the directions 
he had received made straight for his master's 
house, and when he had halted there, he could not 
help observing that he was not asked to assist in 
carrying the sick lady into the parlor. It was to 
the third story the unconscious woman was taken 
and there laid carefully on the bed in a strange 
looking room, to which light was admitted by 
means of a high skylight. The walls were 
padded, and the heavy door, with an iron grating, 
opened into a corridor that went around three 
sides of the apartment. 

The latter was fitted up as a bedroom, one 
corner being curtained off to serve as a bath room 
and dressing room. 

The doctor carefully unpinned Leah's veil, put 
a carafe of water within her reach and left her. 

And when she recovered her senses the last 
rays of the departing sun were reflected on the 


202 Leave Me My Honor, 

metal mirror that was fastened to the wall in 
front of her. She sat up and wondered how she 
came there. Was she awake, or only dreaming? 
She felt very thirsty and drank water from the 
bottle before her, seeing no vessel about into 
which she could pour it. Then she came to full 
recollection, and immediately the fact flashed 
upon her that she was in the power of Dr. Tray- 
nell. 

He had met her at the train, she had foolishly 
stepped into his carriage, and the pungent odor 
of which she had been for a moment conscious, 
was doubtless some stupefying drug that had 
done its work but too well. 

Her eyes flashed and her little fists clenched 
themselves as she thought of this new indignity 
she had received at his hands ; and had the doc- 
tor come into her presence at that moment, the 
water bottle and his head would have come into 
contact, of a surety. 

She got up, walked about the room, and pres- 
ently realized the hopelessness of her position, 
there, in the doctor’s house, most probably, with 
none of her friends aware of her departure 
from home and her arrival in Philadelphia. How 
foolish she had been not to telegraph Max or Dr. 
Bob, or her butler even, by what train she was 
coming. And old George at the other end would 
wait patiently until he heard from her what to 
do with her trunks and maid. 

If Dr. Traynell chose to keep her there for 
weeks a prisoner, which she knew she was, for 
she had tried the door and found it barred, he 
could do so without any one knowing that she 


Leave Me My Honor. 203 

had disappeared. True, she had wired Dr. Bob, 
'‘Will be with you soon’' but that was not very 
definite; and he, too, would sit down and fold 
his hands patiently while she was here at the 
mercy of Traynell; and should he or the Stan- 
hopes discover by some lucky chance that she 
had left home, they would never suspect him of 
foul play now that he was friendly with them all 
again. 

Why had he done this thing? What was his 
present scheme with regard to her ? Too well she 
foresaw it. Again she was a widow, and again he 
would offer himself to her in marriage. 

Had she anything with which to kill him, the 
loathsome reptile, anything with which to defend 
herself in case he attempted force with her? 

Yes, she had the long pins that fastened on 
her veil ; but when she looked for them, she found 
that they had been most carefully removed, as 
had also the ornament, a jet handled dagger, that 
she had thrust through her hair. 

Was there anything in the room she could 
use as a weapon ? She looked. There was noth- 
ing but the water bottle that could be moved, and 
something told her that that would be taken away 
as soon as she slept. 

She felt so utterly alone and helpless, God- 
forsaken. She who had been only a few days 
ago a petted darling whose every wish was grati- 
fied, sometimes before it was uttered, happy with 
her husband in her own beautiful home, was 
now a lonely, miserable widow, and a prisoner in 
the hands of her enemy in a room which had been, 
she had no doubt about it, at one time or other. 


204 Leave Me My Honor, 

the abode of the insane; else why the unusual 
solidity of its appurtenances, the iron grating, the 
padded walls ? Was she really in the doctor’s own 
home in the heart of the city, or had he taken her 
to some private asylum on the outskirts? No ; she 
was in the centre of the city. She could hear, 
though faintly, the noise of traffic, the gongs of 
the street cars at short intervals, the church bells, 
and the chimes from a clock tower. She was in 
the doctor’s house near St. George’s Hall. 

What would he say to her when he showed 
his hateful face at the grating? Was it his inten- 
tion to starve her into submission? The pangs of 
hunger now assailed her. 

No, she would not be starved, for there was 
food being pushed through a slit under the grat- 
ing, a waiter full of good things was being slid 
on to a marble shelf near the door, by a black 
hand, which was withdrawn as soon as the waiter 
had come to a resting place. She could not see 
the body to which the hand belonged, it was either 
stooped below the grating or standing beside the 
door, not in front of it. 

'‘Are you a man or a woman?” Leah asked 
cautiously. 

“Eat yo* suppah, chile,” was the reply she re- 
ceived, “an’ don’t bothar yo’se’f about me. De 
lickrish light’ll flash out soon’s it’s dark enough, 
an’ I’ll push you in a night gown soon’s I kin.” 

The voice was the voice of a negress, which 
gave Leah hope. She might be able to buy her 
way out of this place, but when she came to look 
for her pocket-book, she found that the hand bag 
in which she had carried it was not in the room, 


Leave Me My Honor. 205 

and when she examined the secret pocket in her 
petticoat into which she had thrust a roll of money 
before leaving home, she discovered that it also 
had been picked; her watch was gone, the rings 
had disappeared from her fingers, the brooch 
from her neck. For the first time Leah gave way 
to despair, as the full knowledge of the doctor’s 
fiendish cruelty burst upon her. 

She was no longer hungry. The food on the 
waiter remained untouched through the night. 

The light appeared as the negress had said it 
would, and she lay on the bed staring up at it in 
speechless misery. 

Presently her eyes closed and she slept, and 
sweet visions came to her of green fields and 
limpid waters, of voluptuous banquets, of music 
and mirth. She awoke toward morning, stiff and 
uncomfortable, for she had not disrobed. 

As she glanced toward the door she saw that 
a house wrapper of some soft white material was 
lying on the floor near it, together with a complete 
change of underwear, a pair of slippers and a 
cambric night dress. 

She arose, took a bath and made herself 
comfortable in the garments which were all new 
but a trifle too large for her. While she was in 
the bath she heard a noise at the grating, and 
■peeping through the curtains, saw, pulling out the 
waiter, the same black hand that had pushed it in 
the night before; and in a few minutes another 
waiter made its appearance on which was a 
steaming, appetizing breakfast, of which she ate 
up every crumb when she had finished her toilet, 


2o6 Leave Me My Honor, 

Greatly refreshed, she sat down in a bamboo 
chair to await events. 

She wondered if there was any possible way 
of escape from this room. 

She had spent much time in her gj^mnasium and 
was posted in all kinds of athletics, could jump, 
climb, swing, and what not? Could she by any 
manner of means reach that skylight above her? 
Her eyes were measuring the distance, when she 
became aware of the doctor’s square form at the 
grating and of his evil eyes peering in at her. 

^'Good-morning,” he said with a leer ; "how do 
you feel this morning?” 

Leah looked wrathfully at him. "Coward!’* 
she said. "Villain, why have you brought me 
here ?” 

"To make you my wife, my dear,” answered 
the doctor. "By fair means, if possible ; the other 
way, if you will have it so.” 

"What do you mean by the other way ?” 

"Drug you, hypnotize you — anything to make 
you say *y&s' before a minister, to make you le- 
gally mine. You are very beautiful still, Leah, 
and I love you. Fate played into my hands yes- 
terday when it sent me to the depot to see a friend 
off on a journey and there gave you into my arms. 
I had you for a long time pressed close to my 
heart, Leah, here in this room. Be mine ! Be my 
wife! You will learn to love me. Promise to 
marry me and I give you your freedom; refuse, 
and ypu stay here with me in my home—in this 
room, where I can come to you whenever I am so 
minded and spend hours with you. You shall 
never leave it except as my wife.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 207 

'^And do you think for a moment that you can 
do all that, Dr. Traynell — that my friends will not 
move heaven and earth to find me ?” 

The doctor laughed. ‘Tn some way you must 
have come here without notifying your friends of 
your intention, for there has as yet been no out- 
cry over your disappearance, and when I called on 
Dr. Bob last night, after you had been five hours 
with me, he told me you would come to Philadel- 
phia soon. This morning I shall call at the Stan- 
hopes to see their fine boy ’’ 

“What!” Leah interrupted him. “Their fine 
boy? Is Mabel’s child a boy?” 

“Yes, a fine big boy, and she was continually 
prating of the little daughter she was expecting. 
Ha! ha!” 

“And is-my dear Mabel well ?” 

“ ‘Mother and child both doing well,’ is what 
Dr. Bob reports.” 

“Oh, if I only could see Mabel and her 
little one !” and she made an appealing 
gesture to Dr. Traynell, and tears coursed down 
her cheeks. 

“Don’t cry, Leah,” he said, “you may go to see 
her and the baby in a few hours if you say the 
word.” 

“If I say the word that makes me your wife, 
monster! Hideous reptile! But that word will 
never be spoken if you keep me here for a life- 
time. I hate you, do you hear me, hate you ! and 
if you were in my reach would strangle the life 
out of you, you dastardly fiend! You do well to 
keep the grating between us ! You manly drug- 
ger of helpless women, you do well to keep the 


2o8 Leave Me My Honor. 

grating between us when I am not under the 
power of your poisons! But you will be pun- 
ished. My friends will find me, and then, Dr. 
Traynell, beware I Beware, I say, for you will be 
torn limb from limb if Dr. Bob and Max Stan- 
hope find out that you have but injured a hair of 
my head 

“You are ranting, Leah. A few days up here 
will bend you to my will. I wish to marry you. 
I have no desire to injure you.'' 

“Will you give me some books to read to while 
away the tedium of the hours?" 

“You will find some in the closet to your right, 
on the top shelf. Touch the middle clothes- 
hook below what you think is the ceiling of the 
closet. It conceals the spring that holds down 
the roll top of a bookcase. By touching another 
spring in the surbase — it looks like a little brass 
nail — you may pull out a stepladder on which 
you can stand to reach the case." 

“How ingeniously is everything constructed in 
your house, Dr. Traynell I" Leah sneered. “Pray, 
who was the former occupant of this room?" 

“My mother," said Dr. Traynell, “and she died 
here. Good-bye, till I see you again." And he 
was gone. 

Leah allowed no time to elapse before she in- 
vestigated the closet. 

She had opened the door of it the previous even- 
ing and had supposed it to be an ordinary ward- 
robe closet, with its rOws of hooks, and nothing 
more. The idea of a ladder of any kind gave her 
hope, but when she touched the nail-spring in the 
washboard and gave it a pull she brought out a 


Leave Me My Honor » 209 

lolding-ladder arrangement so fastened to the 
wall that it could not be removed from the closet. 

She would see what the bookcase contained. 
When she touched the hook-spring and the top 
rolled back it disclosed three narrow slielves filled 
with small but choice books, and in one corner a 
small ebony box, which upon examination proved 
to be a small writing-desk. She sat on the top of 
the ladder and took down every volume, ran over 
its pages, turned it upside down and inside out, 
hoping to find something, she knew not what, that 
might suggest a means of escape from this place. 
She reasoned that if she could reach the skylight 
or even throw something through it, she might ac- 
complish something toward her delivery. What 
if she could climb up and out, or if she could 
break the glass and throw out a letter to be picked 
up by some passer-by? 

A pencil might be concealed in one of the vol- 
umes, the flyleaf would do for the message — or a 
pen — but search as she might, she could find noth^ 
ing to write with, not even a match stick, a tooth- 
pick, or pin — nothing wherewith to scribble a 
message to her friends. What could she do? In 
the absence of anything to prick her finger with, 
could she draw blood with her teeth? Yes, she 
could bite off the whole top of her finger if neces- 
sary and write with the bloody stump in order to 
get helped out of this place, but that would be 
revolting. Yet there was a sick thrill at her heart 
whenever she thought of herself as helpless, un- 
conscious, before Dr. Traynell. Anything rather 
than that ! 

She felt all along the shelves and behind the 


210 


Leave Me My Honor. 

books, and was just giving up in despair when 
something wrapped itself about her hand. Was it 
a cobweb? No, it was ^oo strong. She turned 
her hand a few times and brought it to the light. 
It was a piece of white thread, the other end of 
which was apparently held fast, and by moving 
her finger along the entire length she discovered 
in a knot hole below the edge of the top shelf a 
spool of white cotton. 

To pry it out was the work of i moment, and 
carefully winding up the thread again, she put 
back her treasure trove into its hiding place. She 
would know where to find it when she needed it 
and there it would be safe. 

If they would only bring her with her next 
meal food that should be eaten with a knife and 
fork ! With a knife she could manage to cut her- 
self or with the fork jab her hand, and by suck- 
ing it keep the wound open and write with her 
blood. 

So far there had been none on the waiter; all 
she was allowed was a spoon, which was dull- 
edged and of silver, and, moreover, the dishes 
and the very waiter were all of silver. 

With one of the heavy silver cuds she could 
make a hole in the skylight, could she be sure she 
was not being watched the whole time that the 
waiter was with her. The black hand removed 
it the moment she was through eating, and she 
felt certain that if she kept anything from it it 
would be instantly demanded, and if she refused 
to give it up the drug would come into play 
again — the drug she so dreaded. 

No, she must not take anything from the wait- 


21 1 


Leave Me My Honor. 

er, and what she contemplated doing must be 
done at night when the negress was off guard. 

Selecting a few books, she got down from her 
perch and seated herself again in the white patent 
rocker. 

Read she could not, though the book was held 
open in her hand before her. Her thoughts trav- 
eled back to the warning against Dr. Traynell 
contained in Ralph’s letter. Why had she not 
heeded it? Why had she not obeyed him? This 
last thought opened up another train of ideas, and 
she got up and paced up and down her prison 
chamber in every direction till the evening sun 
again showed red beams in the mirror and Dr. 
Traynell stood once more before the grating. 

“Good-evening, my love,” he said, smiling ma- 
liciously. “I have been to see the Stanhopes to- 
day and some of your other friends, and they all 
rest under the blissfull assurance that you are 
safe, if not happy, in your home in the West. I 
expected to see a full account of the disappear- 
ance of Governor Fourfield’s widow in the papers 
before this and a big fuss made about it. I judge 
by that that your people at the other end are sim- 
ply waiting till they hear from you, and those who 
are at this end believe you still there. Fortune 
has been kind to me, you see, and if you will only 
marry me I will be the happiest man on all the 
earth, and you will be free to go to Mabel Stan- 
hope and see her and Max make fools of them- 
sdves over the wonderful boy. He is a fine fel- 
low- ” 

“Whom does he resemble?” Leah asked eager- 
ly, “Max or Mabel?” 


212 Leave Me My Honor. 

“He is the image of Max/’ the doctor said. 
“He cannot deny him.” 

“And Mabel, you say, is doing well ?” 

“Yes — looks very white and fragile, but she’s 
all right. Her greatest desire is to show you her 
son. 

“And oh, how I long to see him !” sighed Leah. 

“They are going to tell her in a day or two of 
the death of your husband,” the doctor went on. 
“She does not know it yet.” 

“Oh, how it will shock her and grieve her, my 
poor little Mabel,” and she spoke no further. A 
thought had come into her mind, bringing with it 
a feeling of hope. “Dr. Traynell,” she said pres- 
ently, “will you not be generous and manly, and 
set me free? You were once the intimate friend 
of Ralph Wentworth. You must at one time have 
been a good man to draw forth his love and re- 
spect. Be my friend. Give up the idea of mak- 
ing me your wife, and let me go free, and I will 
bless you forever. Set me free !” 

“I cannot, Leah,” the reply came quickly. “I 
love you. It makes me so happy to have you here 
in this house with me, even though you are not 
my wife — here, where I can feast my eyes on your 
beauty every hour of the day if I am so minded — 
or at night. Conscious or unconscious, you will 
be mine. No one will ever dream of your being 
here, even after the fact of your disappearance is 
made plain. How can they connect me with it? 
And you will be here for years, perhaps, if you 
continue stubborn — here with me, in my own 
home, my wife in all but name.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 213 

Leah said nothing more. She knew that all ar- 
guments would be vain, all threats fail. 

She would wait until Mabel was told of the 
Governor’s death, and in the meanwhile would 
think and ponder and scheme to escape. 

“Dr. Traynell,” she said, after a long silence, 
“this room was very warm last night. Could 
you not give a little better ventilation?” 

“Yes,” he said at once. “That skylight can be 
raised a few inches and the windows in the cor- 
ridor left open to give you a draught. If neces- 
sary, I can set the fans going in the corridor, but 
it is scarcely hot enough for that yet.” 

A picture of the front of the doctor’s house 
came into Leah’s mind while he was speaking. 
In the third story there were two windows, with 
a very wide space of brick wall between, while 
the second floor was pierced with three windows, 
and the first held a wide-arched doorway, with a 
window at each side of it. 

The skylight she knew now to be a portion of 
the old-fashioned slanting roof resting on that 
bare section of wall. Anything she could throw 
through it or push past it at the front end would 
fall on the pavement in front of the house. The 
two windows in the third story must be at the 
front end of the well-lighted corridor she could 
see through the grating, one at each side, inter- 
secting the one that led past the door. 

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” 
the doctor asked. He was now seated before the 
grating in a huge cushioned armchair which he 
had rolled there from across the corridor.- “Have 
you any idea of escaping from this place? There 


214 Leave Me My Honor. 

is no way of doing *it except by this door, and it is 
so firmly set that the combined strength of a 
dozen men couldn't bulge it, and you are only a 
weak woman. The skylight opens upward ; 
so, even if you could climb up that smooth, 
bare wall to reach it, you would fall 
out and break your pretty neck on the 
flags below. To get out on the roof is an 
impossibility; do not make the useless attempt. 
Come, Leah, be sensible! Be my wife and let 
me love you !” 

'T will never be your wife,” she said with en- 
ergy, and turned the chair and her back on him. 

He sighed and walked away slowly. 


Leave Me My Honor, 215 


XXX. 

When the negress brought her supper Leah 
made bold to approach her. '‘Which do you pre- 
fer — money or jewelry?” she asked. 

“I likes de joolry de best, of cohse,’’ she re- 
plied, “but you ain't got none, chile. I knows 
dat” 

“How do you know it?” 

“ 'Cause I was in heah wid de doctaK when he 
done tuck off yo' watch, an' de dull lookin' black 
pin f'om yo' neck, an' dem gorjee-ous rings off 
yo' hands ; likewise de knife an' ha'rpins f'om yo' 
ha'r, an de money f'om yo' pocket. Liked to had 
one o' dem rings ! But he done lock up ev'ything 
in de big safe down in de awfiss, an' I guess I'll 
nevah see 'em no mo'. I always liked joolry, 
rings 'speshly.'' 

“I can't give you a ring, but if I can give you 
something that sparkles like the rings will you 
bring me a lead pencil, a sheet of paper and an 
envelope ?'' 

The fat black face showed itself for the first 
time above the grating, with greed stamped on 
its every feature. 

“What you gwine to do wid it?” she asked. 
“Write a lettah or make yo' will?” 


2t6 Leave Me My Honor, 

“Write a letter,” said Leah. 

“An’ you want me to put it in de box fo’ you, I 
’spect, mum. Well, I could git you de writin’ 
things, I s’pose, an’ put de lettah in de box fo’ 
you, too. Let’s see de shiny things.” 

Leah took off one of her garters and showed 
her the jeweled buckle on it. 

“Oh, um,” said the negress, “he done fo’got yo’ 
laigs! I’ll bring you de writin’ things; an’ say, 
you’ll want a post stamp, too, won’t you? Let- 
tahs don’t go widout no post stamps. Gimme de 
two garters, an’ I’ll git you de things an’ put de 
lettah in de box faithful, an’ not read it myse’f or 
hand it to de doctah. ’Clar to gracious I won’t 
hand it to the doctah ! But I can’t git 'em fo’ you 
to-night, chile, or all day to-morrah, but de nex’ 
night I kin bring ’em, ’cause den de doctah’ll be 
gone to de lodge, an’ I’ll be heah all alone by my- 
se’f. He’s mighty shahp, dat doctah. Watches 
’round like any ole cat, goes out an’ comes in on 
you onexpected all de time; but when he do go 
to de lodge he stays thar fo’ hours, an’ he can’t 
watch you an’ jump on you. Lemme look at ’em 
again. Um, um, de pooty things !” as Leah held 
both garters up to view. 

When the baby was four days old Max judged 
that he might break the news of Governor Four- 
field’s sudden death to his wife. He had been 
leading up to it cautiously all along, but yet it 
was a terrible shock to Mabel when she heard the 
full particulars. 

“And Leah is there all alone!” she exclaimed 
jyhen Max had finished. “Alone in her dreadful, 


Leave Me My Honor, 217 

dreadful sorrow. She will kill herself — that’s 
what she will do. You must go at once, Max, and 
bring her to me, my poor, poor Leah. She will 
come with you, though she wouldn’t with Dr. Bob. 
You must not fear to leave me. It will hurt me 
more to know of her being there all alone among 
strangers than to do without you for two days. 
Go, go, my dear husband. Dr. Bob will take care 
of me, and I have the best of nurses. It will kill 
me if you don’t go and bring Leah !” 

So Max went on Friday night with the 9.30 
train. 

They looked at him in amazement when he ar- 
rived at the Fourfield residence and asked for the 
lady of the house. Old George came forward di- 
rectly. “Why, sir,” he said, “my mistress left 
here on Tuesday night on the owl train for Phila- 
delphia. I saw her off myself, sir. She insisted 
on going all alone — wouldn’t even take her maid 
with her, and wouldn’t let me telegraph to you 
she was coming, though I suggested it to her, sir, 
at the depot. Where is my beautiful mistress? 
God ! Oh, God, what has happened to her !” and 
the old man wrung his hands piteously. 

Max was stunned, speechless. Leah not there ! 
Gone to Philadelphia on Tuesday, and this was 
Saturday, and they had neither seen nor heard 
anything of her ! 

He immediately wired to Dr. Bob: “Search 
for Leah. She left here Tuesday night for Phila- 
delphia. I return by next train.” And he took 
the next express East after promising to let the 
old man hear from him as soon as possible. That 


2 i 8 Leave Me My Honor, 

something wrong had happened her he felt cer- 
tain, and he was nearly distracted. 

At Broad Street Station Max found Dr. Bob 
waiting for him. *'She is not here,” the latter 
called out to him before he had his foot off the 
platform. ‘They know nothing of her at her own 
home, and I have hunted up every likely place I 
could think of. Great God ! where is she ?” 

Max could not answer. His great heart was 
crushed and a shudder shook his frame. “We 
two must find her,” he said. “We will not call in 
the police until it is absolutely necessary. Come 
home with me. Mabel must be told.” 

His wife took the terrible news quietly. “Leah,” 
she said, “is in this city, in a house that has a 
wide space of brick wall between two upper floor 
windows. Ralph appeared to me before my baby 
was born and showed me the house in a picture. 
Let me think, let me think. Where did I see that 
house before? It is familiar to me, and so is that 
house with the colonnade front on the same street 
with it; but where is it? Whose house could it 
be?” 

She cudgeled her brain to locate that house, 
but up to a late hour Sunday night had not suc- 
ceeded in doing so. 

Monday morning Dr. Traynell dropped in to 
pay her a friendly visit. “Max! Max!” cried 
Mabel as soon as he was gone, “the house of my 
dream is Dr. Traynell’s, and the other building is 
old St. George’s Hall ! Leah is with him ! Put 
on your hat and run and tell Dr. Russell to search 
Dr. Traynell’s house for Leah till he finds her. 


Leave Me My Honor, 219 

Let him do it, for you, darling, must come back 
to me.’' 

Max did as she bid him, though he had no faith 
in her dream. 

He found the doctor about to open a letter 
which a painter had brought him, and waited. 

The envelope Dr. Bob was scrutinizing bore 
his address, and in one corner the statement : “Dr. 
Robert Russell will give the person who takes this 
letter to him fifty dollars.” 

He opened it slowly, and could not repress a 
veritable shout when he read the first line. With 
evident emotion he perused it to the end, when, 
turning to a drawer in his desk, he took out a 
wallet and counted out fifty dollars to the man 
who stood waiting. 

The latter could scarce believe his eyes, and 
left the office with a hearty “Thank you, sir.” 

“Here, Max, read this,” the doctor gasped, and 
thereupon opened his pistol case, took out the 
weapon it contained, shoved it into his pocket, 
stepped into the gymnasium for a coil of rope 
and a walking cane, and put on his hat. “I am 
going,” he said, “for Leah. You go back to your 
wife and show her that letter. You need not 
come with me. The letter, tied to a hairbrush, 
struck that man on the head this morning, he told 
me, as he was standing on a scaffold painting the 
windows of Dr. Traynell’s house in the second 
story. I will call on him if I need any help.” 

The letter was as follows : 

“I, Leah Fourfield, am a prisoner in the house 
of Dr. Traynell, near St. George’s Hall, on the 


220 Leave Me My Honor, 

third floor, in the room between the windows. I 
arrived at Broad Street Station Wednesday after- 
noon, and Dr. Traynell, who happened to be see- 
ing off a friend in the car ahead, saw me and of- 
fered to take me home in his carriage. I 
accepted, and we drove down Fifteenth street, but 
just before we reached Walnut he drugged me, 
drove back and brought me into this house uncon- 
scious. Thursday night I bribed the doctor’s ne- 
gress to bring me these writing materials. She 
did so on Friday night, and I will throw this let- 
ter through the skylight as soon as I can find a 
way and a good opportunity. I pray God it may 
get into your hands and that you will rescue me ; 
but do it quietly to avoid a scandal. Leah.” 

^T knew it,” said Mabel, when Max had read 
her the letter, "‘and Dr. Bob will be here with her 
directly. Tell the housekeeper to have a good cup 
of tea made ready. The poor thing will need it.” 

Dr. Bob saw through the glass door that Dr. 
Traynell was alone in his office bending over some 
object that lay before him on the table. It was 
the picture of Leah enameled inside her watch- 
case. 

He took an end of the rope he carried in one 
hand, the cane in the other, and stepping quickly 
inside, gave Dr. Traynell a terrific cut on the face, 
slipped a noose around his neck and pulled him 
from his chair to the floor. Dazed and half- 
strangled, Traynell was easy to overpower, and 
in the twinkling of an eye his hands were tied 
behind his back. “Now, scoundrel,” said Dr. 


Leave Me My Honor, 221 

Bob, ^^take me to the third story and open the 
door of Leah’s prison. Don’t speak or I’ll ram 
my fist down your throat. 

Dr. Traynell glared at his captor and wouldn^t 
budge. 

'‘You won’t, eh?” said Robert Russell. “Maybe 
this will goad you,” and he gave him some sting- 
ing blows with the cane across the head and 
shoulders. 

Dr. Traynell did not move. “You may kill 
me,” he said, “but you’ll never get Leah from me 
alive.” 

“We’ll see about that,” said Dr. Bob, drawing 
his revolver. “You’re a brave man, I know, a 
very brave man, but you can’t look into the tube 
of a revolver in my hand without flinching. Now, 
move on, I say.” 

Dr. Traynell rose to his feet and walked on 
ahead up to the third floor, to the door with the 
grating. “Leah,” he said, “I have brought Dr. 
Bob here to liberate you ; but before you leave this 
room take down the ebony writing-desk, touch the 
little knob under the empty inkwell, and you will 
find the jewelry I took from you on the day I 
brought you here. If you will untie my hands. 
Dr. Bob, I will show you howto open this door. 
It has a secret spring as well as the bars to fasten 
it.” 

“Point out the spring to me, you hell hound, or 
I’ll blow oif the top of your head ; and you, Leah, 
let that ebony writing-desk alone. This wretch 
lies. Your watch is downstairs on his office desk.” 

“And the other jewelry is in the safe,” Leah 
finished. “Keep him bound, Dr. Bob, and out 


222 Leave Me My Honor, 

there with you until I have changed my dress; 
and when I go out of this room we’ll push him 
into it, and he may stay here until the negress and 
the coachman, who are now out marketing, think 
of coming up here, which will not be until it is 
time for luncheon. I will be ready in a moment.” 

It was now Traynell’s turn to experience the 
power of brute force, and in obedience to the last 
threat from Dr. Russell he put the toe of his shoe 
to a groove in the door near the bottom. A spring 
clicked, the door flew open, Leah stepped into the 
corridor, and Dr. Traynell was pushed uncere- 
moniously into the padded chamber, the door 
closed again and barred. 


Leave Me My Honor, 223 


XXXI. 

With Mabel’s baby on her lap, every now and 
then stooping to kiss him, Leah related to her 
three friends the particulars of her abduction as 
far as we know them, and continued: 

'‘On Friday night, after I had written the let- 
ter, I worried my brain for some way of getting 
it past that skylight, out into the street, and not 
until Monday morning, while I was lying in bed, 
did the thought occur to me that the metal poles 
that held up the long curtain across the dressing- 
room might be unscrewed from their sockets, the 
letter hoisted to the skylight, which was now 
raised a few inches, and pushed out. To think 
was to act. I jumped out of bed, hung my black 
dress across the grating so as to keep any one in 
the corridor from seeing me at work, balanced 
myself on the bamboo chair and began with the 
brass knobs that finished the poles. A few turns 
of my wrist and I had them off. The curtains I 
slid off next, and soon the two poles were lying 
at my feet on the floor. I took off the bolster 
case, wrapped it tightly around the poles where I 
wanted to join them, and tied it about so that they 
would stay together with a sixteen-strand cord I 
bad twisted out of my precious spool of cotton. I 
knew now that I could loop a string to the letter. 


224 Leave Me My Honor, 

hang it lightly to the end of the pole, push it past 
the skylight, and drop it; and while I was busy 
about it my eye lighted on the silver-backed hair- 
brush. ‘There,' I thought, ‘is the thing that will 
draw attention to my letter. People might not 
trouble themselves about a letter lying on the 
sidewalk, but not many would walk by a valuable 
silver hairbrush and not pick it up. So I fastened 
the letter to the brush and the brush to the end of 
the pole, raised it, pushed it past the skylight, 
gave it a little shake, and the brush and letter 
were gone." 

“And they struck the head of a painter who was 
standing on a scaffold just below the second story 
ready to begin his day's work," the doctor chimed 
in, “and he brought them to me just as Max en- 
tered my office." 

“And I had gone there at Mabel's request," 
Max explained, “to tell you that she had recog- 
nized the house Ralph Wentworth showed her in 
her dream as Dr. Traynell’s — the one facing St. 
George’s Hall. He has an office farther out, you 
know. And bade m-e tell you to search in the 
third story behind that wide space of wall between 
the two windows. Little I thought that you had 
in your hands at that very moment the confirma- 
tion of the message I bore to you. Was it not 
strange that Leah should be hidden in that house 
in the very place Ralph pointed out to Mabel in 
the picture ?" 

“Ralph still watches over me," Leah said, 
thoughtfully, with tears in her eyes. “My good, 
good Ralph." 


Leave Me My Honor. 225 

Leah’s trunks and her maid arrived in due time 
from Columbus, and again she was established 
in her old quarters with Mabel. 

A few friends were told of her presence in the 
city, but no word was given of her detention by 
Dr. Traynell. That gentleman’s house was closed. 
He had left the city. 

Here, with her friends, with plenty to occupy 
her mind and that precious baby to fondle, Leah’s 
grief for the loss of the Governor grew less and 
less, and gradually that year spent with him be- 
came as a pleasant dream, and his death as a faint, 
sad memory. 

1 he many shocks she had received in such rapid 
succession had told upon her nervous system, but 
under Dr. Bob’s treatment she gradually became 
her old self again. 

For July and August she went with Max and 
Mabel to the seashore, to Atlantic City, where 
they spent those hot months quietly at the Stan- 
hope cottage. 

To them would come on Saturdays Dr. Bob and 
Willie Hapnett, who was studying up for his 
graduating term in the law at the University of 
Pennsylvania. His studying might all have been 
done at the cool seashore had he not wished to be 
as near as possible to Miss Grade, who was now 
his betrothed, and she was tied fast to the bedside 
of her brother, the botanist, who had inflammatory 
rheumatism and couldn’t be moved. 

Young Hapnett and Miss Gracie would be 
married as soon as the former had graduated in 
the law — “with honor,” his father stipulated — 
otherwise the marriage would be delayed; and 


226 'Leave Me My Honor. 

Willie was working very hard and '‘perspiring 
over it/’ he told Leah when he came down for the 
breath of fresh air which his father insisted on his 
having for at least two days of each week for the 
benefit of his health. 

So he was the weekly companion of Dr. Rus- 
sell — whom he liked exceedingly well now that 
he knew he had no designs on Dora — to the Stan- 
hope cottage, and went back with him on Monday 
morning. 


Leave Me My Honor. 227 


XXXII. 

Three days after Leah’s return to Philadelphia 
she received a letter from Dr. Traynell. 

She took it unopened to Dr. Bob. “What is he 
up to, I wonder?” he remarked, as he carefully 
opened it. 

Leah read with him over his shoulder : 

“Dear Leah : — ^When this reaches you I shall 
be dead. You are lost to me, and I care not to live 
longer. I meant for you to die, too, when I told 
you your jewels were in the little ebony desk. 
Had you touched the knob under the empty ink- 
well the room would have been instantly filled 
with a pungent perfume, which, if you had in- 
haled it, would have killed you. It was placed in 
the little desk by me long before I knew you, and 
I had forgotten all about it; but when I stood 
before the grating, bound and powerless, I 
thought of it, and would fain have killed you — 
killed you, Leah, and killed myself. Fate inter- 
fered, however, and I go alone to that bourne 
whence no traveler ever returns. In my will I 
have given you all I possess. Do what you please 
with it. You will find the document in my safe — 
it is not locked — together with my mother’s diary, 


228 Leave Me My Honor. 

which, if you care to read it, will give you the his- 
tory of that padded room. Burn it when you are 
through with it. 

“I am sitting now in my office, with your dear, 
smiling face looking up at me, and I am ready to 
die. When I have addressed this to you I will 
drop it into the letter-box, come back here and sit 
down again — and to-morrow morning they will 
find me stark and stiff, sitting in my chair, with 
your picture in my hand. I have loved you well. 
Good-bye.” 

Leah wondered if he thought to lure her back 
to his house by this means. What did she care 
for his will or his mother’s diary and the history 
of the padded room? She was out of the latter, 
thank God! and she cared to know nothing fur- 
ther about it. 

Dr. Bob, after pondering over the letter, de- 
cided to go to the ill-omened house and find out 
what it really meant. But first he would invite a 
chemist and some prominent physicians who were 
intimate with Dr. Traynell to accompany him. 

To Leah he said before he went : “I think that 
he has killed himself and that whoever, without 
proper precaution, removes the will and diary 
from the safe will be killed also. The doctor is a 
professor of chemistry, and holds a chemical se- 
cret of great value to the medical world. He has 
a drug, the composition of which he keeps to him- 
self, that is more effective than chloroform, ether, 
nitrous oxide, or any of the usual anaesthetics, 
and it leaves no bad after-effects. You were not 
ill or weak after you came to, were you ?” 


Leave Me My Honor. 229 

Leah answered. '‘I felt very well — stim- 
ulated, in fact, as if I had taken a tonic.” 

”That is it. He used on you the drug he is in 
the habit of giving to the patients in his clinic 
whenever he himself performs a surgical opera- 
tion or wishes to deaden pain. The students and 
doctors who know him are eager to get this secret 
from him, but he will not tell ; he will not give it 
to the world, because, he says, the slightest care- 
lessness in the use of it will cause insanity, if 
not death. It is too dangerous a commodity to 
put upon the market. His grandfather, old Uriah 
Traynell — ^the alchemist, they call him- — invented 
it.” 


So Dr. Bob, with two physicians, the chemist 
and half a dozen students arrived before Dr. Tray- 
nell’s house an hour later, to find it closed and the 
blinds all down. 

A ring at the doorbell brought no response, but 
when it had been repeated a clattering of foot- 
steps was heard in the marble vestibule and the 
door was opened by Mima, the doctor’s negress. 

^‘Doctah ain’t in, gemmen,” she said in answer 
to the inquiry. ‘"Done come in dis mawnin’, but 
went out ag’in. Awfiss is closed, I reckon. No, 
’tain’t,” as she tried the door of the outer office. 
‘Uome in. He’s in de house somewhars when 
dat do’ am onlocked.” 

The men came in and found everything in its 
usual order in the outer office and the door of the 
inner one ajar. Dr. Bob pushed it open, and 
there sat Dr. Traynell, gripping tightly the arms 
of his desk-chair, staring into vacancy, straight 


230 Leave Me My Honor. 

before him. On the floor lay Leah’s watch, which 
the doctor quietly picked up, and on the desk 
stood an empty vial still emitting a faint perfume 
which the students at once recognized. 

They opened wide the windows and doors and 
examined the doctor’s condition more closely. 

He was still alive, but to all appearance bereft 
of reason. When they shook him and asked him 
questions he jabbered. Dr. Bob for a moment 
held his eyes and said “Leah.” Traynell repliecf 
“Safe,” and that was the only distinct word he 
uttered. They pulled him to his feet to make him 
walk, but he could not— his lower limbs were 
paralyzed. So they rung for the ambulance and 
took him with them to the hospital, which he left 
only to be taken to the State Asylum for the In- 
sane. 

The day after they found him in that deplor- 
able condition Dr. Bob and his party revisited the 
house to get the will and the diary. 

The negress, when told of the object of their 
call, declared that they “couldn’t git into dat safe 
nohow. He done tuck off de ole lock what I 
knowed all about,” she said, “an’ put on a bran’ 
new one to keep me out, ’cause I done fool wid 
sompin’ he kep’ in a milk jar. I was holdin’ it up 
to de light an’ a-onscrewin’ de top when he cotch 
me at it, an’ ebber sence I couldn’t git in de safe 
no mo’. Didn’ make no diff’ence to me. What 
I care ’bout a ole milk jar?” 

Dr. Bob knew the safe to be unlocked and or- 
dered every door and window on the first floor 
thrown open, and there was no one in the room 
when the door of the safe was pulled back by 


231 


Leave Me My Honor. 

means of a rope that had been fastened to the 
knob and taken across the room and passed 
through a window. 

No odor came from the safe when it was open, 
but in one of the compartments could be seen the 
vial the negress had dubbed a milk Jar, and across 
the top of it lay a black book marked with gold 
letters, “Diary,” and a long, narrow, folded white 
paper. 

Dr. Bob pushed a clothes prop through the win- 
dow and dislodged the book and paper, when 
there came the sound of fizzing, and the air was 
filled with perfume. The negress, whose curios- 
ity made her press too close to the window, was 
overcome by it, and they laid her down on the 
grass plot until they had time to attend to her. 

“I would give a thousand dollars for what is 
left in that jar,” said one of the physicians pres- 
ently. “And I two thousand,” said another. 
“And I five thousand,” the chemist offered. “It 
hasn't half fizzed out yet.” 

But no one cared to venture near that jar or to 
have much to do with that drug. They had all 
seen Dr. Traynell, and they knew the effect of it 
on his brain. Death a doctor will ever brave, but 
insanity is another proposition. 

Out there in the garden they waited until the 
fizzing had stopped in the vial and the odor had 
all evaporated. Then, with a hook fastened to the 
end of a pole. Dr. Bob fished out the diary and 
dipped it into a vessel containing a spirituous 
liquid which the chemist, who was most anxious 
to get the jar,1iad made ready, and when the book 
was withdrawn the liquid was rebottled and he 


232 Leave Me My Honor, 

slipped it into his pocket for future analysis. He 
hoped to get some knowledge of the Traynell 
anaesthetic from it, however slight it might be. 

The diary Dr. Bob claimed for Leah, but he 
promised to share with those who were with him 
any interesting medical registry it might contain. 

The negress regained consciousness, and when 
the safe door was tightly shut again the doctors 
searched the house, the laboratory included. Here 
they came upon a basket containing onion bulbs 
and two very fine specimens of the large red va- 
riety, and upon a tub the bottom of which was 
covered with withered grape leaves. “Pickles,’' 
suggested a student, and passed on. “Traynell’s 
drug contained no inguns,” another facetiously re- 
marked. “ ’Twas sweetest perfume.” But the 
chemist, who was behind them, took up the two 
onions and a handful of the grape leaves and 
pocketed them. The students laughed at him 
openly and the doctors shook their heads doubt- 
ingly, but when the chemist spied and pulled from 
under a metal mortar a mutilated yellow old pre- 
scription from which could be read, “Uvae folia, 
Cepae,” they looked attentive and hazarded num- 
berless wild conjectures as to what that meant 
that looked like the top of a “W,” the only other 
character that could be seen on the mutilated pa- 
per. “Strange things happen nowadays,” he ob- 
served quietly, as the paper went into his pocket- 
book. “If I can discover the old alchemist’s se- 
cret by any means I shall be doing humanity a 
service greater than any yet accomplished.” 

“You are right,” one of the physicians coin- 
cided. “With that anaesthetic Dr. Traynell took 


Leave Me My Honor, 233 

into account neither youth, nor age, nor the phys- 
ical condition of the body when performing a sur- 
gical operation, and he was always successful. 
He was selfish not to give the secret to the world, 
yet we know what it did for him/’ 

The doctor regained the use of his limbs, but 
his mind remained a blank to the last. 

Leah and Mabel went to see him one day at the 
asylum. He looked long at Leah, but he did not 
know her, and she came away weeping at the sad- 
ness of his condition and the wreck he had made 
of himself through love of her. 

The diary contained only the history of a crime 
committed by his father, whose second wife, Dr. 
Traynell’s mother, had married him unwillingly, 
it seems. She had been his ward — a beautiful 
girl, an heiress — and the old doctor, covetous 
alike of her beauty and money, couldn’t think of 
allowing such a prize to escape him, even if, to ac- 
complish his vile ends, he had to resort to foul 
means. 

Drugs were easy. They were always within 
reach, and especially such as his father, Uriah 
Traynell, had prepared in his laboratory, which 
were as yet unknown, safe, not easily detected. 
By their means he first stupefied his ward, and 
when she became aware that she must be his wife 
and no other man’s she submitted, and they were 
married. 

She had known and loved a young lawyer, who 
had shot himself under the delusion that she had 
wantonly jilted him. 

Grief over his death drove her to frenzy, and 
when her child was born she was already an in- 


234 Leave Me My Honor, 

mate of the padded room her husband had fitted 
up for her — a maniac. 

She stayed in that room until she died, but 
when her boy was about twelve years old there 
came a lucid interval, and she learned to love her 
son, and spent many happy hours with him there, 
reading, studying and conversing, preferring that 
room to any she would be compelled to share with 
her husband. 

She made no ef¥ort to conceal the hatred she 
felt for him, and he, though he still loved her, 
grew tired of her violent outbreaks whenever he 
attempted any familiarity, angered at the abhor- 
rence she showed with such inflexible persistency, 
and one day took it into his mind to kill her. The 
sweet-smelling drug was employed in sufficient 
quantity to cause death, and by means of that 
ebony writing-desk, into the false bottom of which 
he had placed a small vial of it, so arranged that 
by touching the little knob under the inkwell his 
wife would not only release the little drawer that 
held her supply of notepaper, but would pull out 
the stopper of the vial that held the deadly drug. 

It happened one day, when her son was spend- 
ing a few days with a friend in a neighboring city, 
that she, wishing to write to him, opened the little 
drawer, and so met death. The boy had fondly 
loved his mother, and grieved sorely at her loss. 

From his father, when the old man was on his 
deathbed, he learned of the drug that had killed 
her, together with the formula for its composi- 
tion and the proper way to use it. 

He resented the death of his mother by such 
means, but not sufficiently to make him lose inter- 


Leave Me My Honor. 235 

est in so powerful an adjunct to medical science 
as he recognized that drug to be. He was then 
a young student of med’cine. 

The writing-desk he had idly examined one day 
when he had gone to the padded room for a book 
which he knew to be in the closet case, and with- 
out any particular purpose in his mind at the 
time had refilled the little vial and put it back in 
its place and the desk in the corner of the book- 
shelf where Leah had found it, and, as he stated 
in his letter, he did not think of it again until he 
wished to kill Leah rather than have her leave 
him. 

What the chief idea in his mind had been when 
he penned that letter to Leah will never be known. 

Whether he thought that she would be foolish 
enough to come for the will and diary, or that Dr. 
Bob, knowing the possibilities of the drug and 
being as anxious as the other doctors to get pos- 
session of some of it, might suspect something in 
the mention- of the diary and go to the safe him- 
self to get it, is mere presumption. 

No more of the drug was found, nor any clue 
to its manufacture other than the chemist had in 
his possession — if, indeed, that were a clue. 

The ebony desk was opened in the garden and 
the little drawer pulled out very carefully, but 
none of the drug could be saved, much to the 
chagrin of the chemist, who had gone as close to 
it as he dared, and yet had failed even to detect 
the odor, 


236 Leave Me My Honor, 


XXXIII. 

Leah stayed all that winter in retirement with' 
Max and Mabel. Twice they had gone to her 
home in Columbus with her for a few days, and 
once Willie Hapnett and his Aunt Sophie had ac- 
companied her. 

A feeling of delicacy caused Dr. Russell to re- 
main away from the Stanhope mansion each time 
Leah had returned from one of these trips, until 
she sent for him. 

The first time she had kept him waiting three 
weeks for any sign that his presence to her would 
be welcome. This compulsory absence had chafed 
his spirit, but when at last he received her dainty 
little billet his eyes danced with joy. 

Yet he must be careful. No expression must be 
given to the passion that consumed him for hours, 
days perhaps, after his glance had once more 
rested on her. Leah was peculiar. 

Quietly he greeted her when she advanced 
toward him in the parlor, and instead of pouring 
into her ears the story of his love and longing, he 
gave her interesting details of his life work and 
the pleasant social news he had gathered. 

No kiss was exchanged at parting, but it took 
the utmost effort of Robert Russell’s powerful 
will to restrain his hunger for one taste of the 
sweet lips, his dearest delight. 


Leave Me My Honor, 237 

The next day when he called he brought with 
him a bouquet of rare flowers. Leah was delight- 
ed with them and gave him a smile, but not yet 
would he ask for anything more. She would 
come to him of her own accord, lay her arm on 
his shoulder perhaps inviting an embrace, or, 
bliss ecstatic ! suddenly put up her lips and so ask 
for a kiss. Ah, then heart should speak to heart ! 
Neither of these hopes were realized during this 
call, but Mabel — good, kind friend that she was to 
him ! — invited him that night to the snuggery. 
Willie and Miss Gracie would be there with them. 
Well, anything was liable to happen in that dear 
snuggery. 

How could she be so calm and cool when with 
him? Did she love him? Yes, she loved him; he 
was sure of that. But could he keep her love? 
Oh, if only this long, cruel time of waiting were 
past ! Once his wife, he would know how to keep 
her. His wife — Leah, the beautiful, whom all 
men worshiped. Might she not again escape him, 
as she had done before ? Before, she had told him 
that love for him had died out of her heart ; now 
it had revived. “You have my heart for all eter- 
nity,” she had said to him. How he hugged that 
precious acknowledgment in his gloomy days ! 

“Leah is alone in the snuggery,” Mabel whis- 
pered when he came that night. “You are early. 
Go right up.” 

He needed no further urging, but went two 
steps at a time, yet softly. 

He parted the curtains, and there sat Leah 
with her back to him, under the full blaze of the 
chandelier, holding open before her a large photo- 


238 Leave Me My Honor, 

graph album. She was looking intently at the 
pictured face of a very handsome man whom she 
had met lately. With a sore pain at his heart Dr. 
Bob dropped the curtains and went back to Ma- 
bel. *‘Has she seen the Senator since the day 
Max introduced him to us?” he inquired, with 
lips and eyes that proclaimed the misery he felt. 
‘‘She is taking in all the details of his handsome 
face now in the snuggery. She has him before 
her in your album. Ah, would that I were dead ! 
I cannot remain here to-night. She — she loves 
me no longer. Let me go,” he added, as Mabel 
laid a detaining hand on his arm. “I am so ut- 
terly miserable, so full of despair. I must be 
alone to fight it.” And he went out and walked 
to his home, where he locked himself in and 
stormed and raged the night through. 

The morning mail brought him these words: 
“Come, at ten, to your Leah.” 

His Leah — yes, his, and no legion of senators 
should take her from him. Closely he examined 
his face in the mirror. He was not a vain man, 
but it gave him pleasure to know that the pale 
face there reflected would bear comparison with 
the pictured face Leah had gazed on. 

She was looking a little pale, but flushed when 
she saw him. “Why did you go away again last 
night after you had come here?” she demanded 
imperiously. 

“Did not Mabel tell you?” 

“No, she did not. I couldn’t coax it out of 
her.” 

“Then I will not tell you either.” Dr. Bob was 
thankful to Mabel, and fully recognized the wis- 


Leave Me My Honor. 239 

dom of her silence. '‘Anything special this morn- 
ing that you have sent for me so early ?’’ 

“Nothing special, only ” 

“Yes, speak out, only ” 

“Only that I wanted you last night ever so 
badly, and you were not here, Robert Russell, 
and I had to write for you to come this morn- 
ing.’' She molded her mouth to pensiveness. 

“And now that I am here, Leah?” 

She came close to him and laid her arm round 
his neck. 

Dr. Bob was happy. Leah was his. Gone was 
all fear of the Senator, as she gave him assur- 
ance doubly and trebly, though mutely, that he, 
Robert Russell, was king of her heart. 

No more trouble did he experience until Leah 
went for the second time to Columbus. Senator 
Miller was then there, while he who was her affi- 
anced lover was eating his lonely heart out here 
in Philadelphia, all because people might talk if 
he had accompanied her. Would that year never 
come to an end? 

He heard that Senator Miller had stepped into 
the carriage that held the Stanhopes and Leah, 
and been driven with them to the Fourfield resi- 
dence. 

Another volunteered the news that the Senator, 
who contemplated an extensive tour through the 
West, would stop a few days where he was be- 
fore going any farther. “The widow seems to be 
the attraction,” had been officiously added. 

He wrote three or four miserable letters to 
Leah, read them over and hastily destroyed them, 
gritted his teeth and endured to the end. 


240 Leave Me My Honor, 

One morning as he was about to step into his 
carriage before the door of a patient, the Stan- 
hope equipage passed him with them and Leah 
in it on their way home. 

How long would she keep him waiting this 
time, he wondered, before she would let him know 
that she was at home to him. One good thing, the 
Senator was on his way to the Far West by this 
time — but no, here he was, shaking hands with 
the politicians. What did it mean? Did Leah 
know that he had come East instead of going far- 
ther West? 

For a week he kept track of the Senator, and 
knew that he had gone one evening to the Stan- 
hopes’ and stayed three hours. Had he been clos- 
eted with Max all that time, or had he been en- 
tertained by the ladies ? Would Leah at the elev- 
enth hour change her mind and marry the Sen- 
ator? She should not marry the Senator. He 
would kill her first ! Kill Leah ? Ah, no ; he was 
not Dr. Traynell. She should live and marry 
whom she pleased. Her life must be all sunshine, 
Ralph had said. He would not be the one to mar 
any of its brightness. 

In this frame of mind he went to bed, and 
when he got up the next morning, rather late, 
there was a letter waiting for him. 

'‘My dear Robert,” it said, “I am going for a 
few days to Ridley Park, with Mabel and Max, to 
visit Senator Miller’s mother. Will be back on 
Friday, when I hope to see you. Do not come 
till evening. Yours, Leah.” 


Leave Me My Honor. 241 

Dr. Bob read it twice over. “That’s a nice, cool 
little letter to get from the woman who has prom- 
ised to marry you,” he thought. “Hopes to see 
me on Friday! 'Do not come till evening!’ I 
wonder what she calls 'evening’ in this case — after 
dark or after dinner ? Let me see. I have an en- 
gagement to dine with the Griscombes on Friday. 
Their niece from the South is still with them. A 
fine girl she is ! I quite enjoyed my chat with her 
the other day. Any amount of 'go’ in her, and 
stylish as they make ’em. Hem ! I guess I won’t 
break my engagement with them. I’ll write Leah 
to that effect and see what comes of it. If she 
doesn’t change 'evening’ to 'morning’ on Friday 
she loves me no longer, and I might as well take 
my defeat gracefully. I wonder how it would do 
to make her jealous? She would suffer, poor 
Leah, but not in silence. Well, a few pangs won’t 
kill her. She doesn’t say when she’s going to 
Ridley Park. Could a special messenger catch 
her before she leaves ? I’ll risk it !” 

He sat down at his desk, wrote rapidly for a 
few minutes, folded and directed his missive, and 
sent it by a special to Leah. 

She tore it open, devoured its contents, said “No 
answer,” and went back to her room to think. 
“Has an engagement for Friday evening, indeed ! 
With the Griscombes. She is there yet, I pre- 
sume !” 

Long she sat thinking. Then she went to Ma- 
bel and coaxed her to come with her to Dr. Bob’s 
office. 

He was very busy that morning. They had to 
>vait until he could get rid of some of his pa- 


242 Leave Me My Honor. 

tients. His heart sang with joy when he caught 
the first gleam of Leah’s eyes. He had always 
hated to see that tiger look on her, but to-day he 
was glad it was there. She loved him still. Oh, 
happy thought ! She was jealous — furiously jeal- 
ous — of him. 

At last he was free, and he turned to her in- 
quiringly. Mabel walked into the outer office to 
examine more closely the doctor’s gristly anatom- 
ical specimens, and left them alone together. 

"‘Now, then,” said the doctor encouragingly, 
want you to give up your dinner engagement 
on Friday evening and come to me,” Leah ordered 
excitedly. 

^'Couldn’t think of it,” the doctor replied, twirl- 
ing his thumbs. “Thought you were going to 
Ridley Park to-day.” 

“So I am, but not until the 5.40. I will be back 
early on Friday, and Mabel wants you to take 
dinner with us.” 

“Sorry to refuse her and you, but I accepted 
Mrs. Griscombe’s invitation before I knew of 
your return two weeks ago.” 

“Accepted it to meet her Southern niece again,” 
Leah said slowly. “She is a charming young 
lady. Max tells me — very popular with the gen- 
tlemen.” 

Dr. Bob smiled and softly rubbed his hands to- 
gether. She was furious. Her eyes were blazing. 
In a minute she would strike him — or kiss him. 

“You are laughing at me,” she said, standing 
before him. “Laughing — at — me.” And all at 
once she put her hands to her eyes and broke 
down completely. “No one was ever angry at 


Leave Me My Honor. 243 

me or laughed at me but you/’ she moaned 
wretchedly, and such bitter sobs broke from her 
as Dr. Bob hoped nevermore to hear from her. 
They seemed to be tearing her heart. He tried 
his best to soothe her, but she would not be com- 
forted. 

“Leah,” said Dr. Bob, “will you not forgive 
me?” 

“You laughed at me,” she replied bitterly, tak- 
ing up her gloves. “We must hurry, Mabel, or 
we’ll not make that train. Good-bye, Dr. Russell.” 

“Will you see me on Friday if I call on you?” 
he asked. 

“Yes, but it would be foolish for you to break 
any engagement. You are nothing to me, Dr. 
Bob, any longer,” and out she walked with the 
air of an empress. 

She spoke no word to Mabel on the way home, 
but when they arrived there she told her that they 
would not go to Ridley Park that day. She felt 
weak and sick, and would retire to her bed at 
once, which she did, and never got out of it again 
for nearly four weeks. 

In all haste Dr. Bob was sent for when Leah 
woke up about ten o’clock that night wildly de- 
lirious — and, oh, how she raved ! 

Dr. Bob stood over her, and the cold sweat of 
fear stood on his forehead as he held his thumb 
over her wrist. If this frenzy would but leave her 
her life, her precious life, might be saved. 

Night and day he spent by her bedside, as he 
had done once before. But this time she was 
weaker. Would she rally? 


244 Leave Me My Honor. 

Mabel begged him to take some rest, but he 
would not hear of it until the crisis was passed. 

Just before twelve o’clock that night she had 
thrown her arms above her head and sighed heav- 
ily. At last the lids closed over the eyes, the arms 
dropped back on the pillow. Leah slept. 

Leah did not see Dr. Bob until she was nearly 
well again. She was sitting up playing with Ma- 
bel’s baby, laughing delightedly as he kicked 
about in her lap trying to grasp a bit of red rib- 
bon she held out before him. 

She started when she saw Dr. Bob, and she 
smiled at him, which he took for an indication that 
an embrace would not be unwelcome. Leah made 
no attempt to withdraw from his arms, but 
turned her cheek to him when he would have 
kissed her lips. “I am glad to see you, Dr. Bob,” 
she said gently, “and grateful for all your kind- 
ness and care, but I would like you to take your 
ring from my finger. It has no longer any signifi- 
cance. I wish to be free again.” 

“Leah, do not give me up until you hear my de- 
fence. I was nearly crazy, my darling, when I 
saw you looking at Senator Miller’s picture that 
night when I would not stay at Mabel’s, and I 
heard that Senator Miller had followed you East ; 
that he spent three hours here in this house where 
you were, and then I received your cool letter — 
the coldest you have ever sent me. I was frantic. 
I saw myself again thrown aside for another man 
as you threw me aside for the Governor. I was 
mortally jealous of the Senator. Then I wanted 
to test your love. If it were still mine I knew that 
you would come to me and forbid me to go to that 


^ Leave Me My Honor. 245 

dinner. I had not the slightest intention of going 
to it. My letter of acceptance to Mrs. Griscombe 
held a proviso. And my happiness was so great 
that I laughed with the joy of it when you made 
known to me that Max told you of my chat with 
Miss Griscombe in front of the Post Office. That 
explained to me the coolness of your letter. I 
was happy, because now I knew that you loved 
me. It made me glad — so glad! — ^that you were 
jealous. Let me take this great boy to the nurs- 
ery, and then^ Leah, you will come back to my 
heart.'^ 

He took up the baby, set him on his shoulder, 
and carried him to his mother with a flush on his 
face and an eager, happy light in his eyes, for he 
had seen that in Leah’s face, when he had stooped 
to take the baby, that had sent the blood to his 
head and made him giddy with hope and joy. 
««•••• 

The wedding was a quiet one. The cere- 
mony was performed by the rector of the church 
to which they belonged, in Mabel’s magnificent 
suite of parlors, which were handsomely decorat- 
ed for the occasion with roses and magnolias. 

After the wedding Dr. and Mrs. Russell took 
a trip to Europe, and when they returned they oc- 
cupied Dr. Bob’s handsome West Walnut street 
residence. 

To please Leah he gave up his practice and de- 
voted himself to her exclusively. 

And in due time Mabel took Max the news that 
to Leah had come a doll of a daughter. 

Six months later they were in Max’s den, smok- 


246 Leave Me My Honor, 

ing, he and Dr. Bob. '‘Why is it,” Max said, in a 
puzzled way, “that so many marriages in high life 
turn out so unhappily? On the part of the man 
there is satiety, on that of the woman a fretful 
jealousy; or, it happens that the woman gets tired 
and seeks a change and the man becomes a vic- 
tim to the green-eyed monster. A man could not 
tire of a woman like Mabel or Leah, and, though 
they are flirts, we have no need to worry.” 

“Innocent flirts,” Dr. Bob retorted. “Last 
night, at the height of Judge Hapnett’s reception, 
they seemed to have nothing at all on their minds, 
yet each was with difficulty managing a multiple- 
duplex flirtation. I must confess that I am flus- 
tered occasionally when Leah meets a man of rare 
parts and ability — one who compels her interest. 
I am forgotten for the moment. Later, she com- 
pares us. It is then that I am anxious, and I 
wait ; but soon there comes a gleam of the eye, a 
fleeting smile, the sweep of her skirts across my 
feet, and I long for a half hour’s tcte-a-tete with 
her. She is difiicile — very chary of her favors. 
They must be sued for, but when at last her will 
bends itself to mine, it is rapture. I am the other 
with her in the Garden of Eden.” 

“They know well how to manage us,” Max ad- 
mitted, smiling. “They have our love, and they 
know how to keep it. We are never spoiled by 
over-indulgence. But what could be sweeter, 
more subtle flattery than the dainty touch of a 
palm on your sleeve or the flutter of a fan against 
you when you are one with her in a circle of ad- 
mirers! I shall always and ever be Mabel’s 
lover.” 


Leave Me My Honor, 247 

Dr. Bob laughed softly to himself, dreamily. 
^‘Leah makes me supremely happy,” he said. “I 
am blessed, yet I thank God that he gave me the 
power to resist her, the strength to send her that 
message : ‘Leave me my honor/ ” 


THE END. 






FEB 190^ 






